Christmas Music

Last week I saw a remote friend’s status on FaceBook that he was attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah.  I was going to comment on it but I stopped myself.  The man happens to be a very religious person and our common acquaintances know me to be quite the smartass.  He’s a nice guy and I didn’t want him to think I was being derisive.

Now that the holidays have officially started, I’ve added my Christmas music playlist to my iPod.

As an “out” atheist, some people have a hard time understanding why I enjoy religious music.  Well, some people have a hard time understanding it, at least they tried to understand.  Most people just call me hypocritical or use it as a way of pointing out my personal flaws and inconsistencies.

Reasons?  Most of it comes from childhood nostalgia.  I grew up on these songs and they make me remember my mom at Christmas.  She always had candles lit, something baking in the oven and Bing Crosby on the record player.  So, as a person that denounces all gods and chooses his own rituals, I see nothing wrong with venerating the warm childhood memories of Christmas.

I still do the whole “Christmas thing” for a few reasons.  Even though I was already anti-religious by the time she was born, I didn’t want to take the Santa Claus mythos away from Becca growing up.  It’s a shame we can’t have a holiday without religion trying to stick some kind of guilt or burden on us.  I won’t bother with the excuse that many of the classic Christmas songs are just new words set to borrowed tunes or that most of the common traditions were borrowed from pagan celebrations or that the very idea of Christ’s birth predates Christianity…

And even if that were not enough, I have another reason.  Many Christians have benefited from heretical ideas like science and evolution, even when they don’t believe in them.  Why can’t I admire some beauty and music without having to swallow the trappings of the dogma that spawned some of it?  If they can believe in the Earth described in Genesis while living in a heliocentric solar system, I can sing “Adeste Fideles” while living in my world without gods.

All of those would be good sound reasons for me to “allow” myself to enjoy Christmas.  But I’ll eliminate all of them and settle on the reason that matters most to me.  I still celebrate Christmas because I want to.  It is fun, it brings my friends and family together and it makes me happy.  That’s all I need really.  That, and when Carol of the Bells is played all dark and creepy, I get VERY excited…