Retiring these Chestnuts

"I get so tired of listening to the Black Eyed Peas. It's rock music for those who don't like rock, rap for those who don't like rap, and pop music for those who don't like music." 

- Robert California, The Office

Often, I feel the same way about Christmas music. Don't get me wrong. I love the festivities. I love much of the happiness. I love the sacred and profane songs that celebrate (or intimate) this time of the year. But there are so many songs that we hear pumped through the loudspeakers and car radios while going about our business (especially if our business consisted of going through retail businesses). So much of the songs and the interpretations of the songs (and the spoofs of those songs, or the novelty songs) are so bad, I just don't want to hear them again. They actually make Christmas a bit less joyous for me.

But I know that I'm not alone in this feeling. So I conducted in an informal survey via Facebook.  Of roughly eighty responses (most people voted for more than one song), these were the Top Tiring Songs of the Christmas Season:

• Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer (17 hits) 
• Please Daddy Don't Get Drunk this Christmas
• Rocking Around the Christmas Tree
• I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus
• Santa Baby
• I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause
• Little Drummer Boy
• Jingle Bell Rock
• Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
• Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
• Happy Holidays
• Christmas Shoes (Edit. Overlooked this purportedly awful song)
• Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire
• 12 Pains of Christmas
• The Little Christmas Stocking with the Hole in the Toe (1 hit)
• Baby It's Cold Outside (ditto)

Now, let's follow that up with two questions.
First: What Christmas or holiday songs aggravate you? You just want to stuff them back into the closet of mediocrity or drown them in the pool of horrible dreams and forget about them. Let their names never be spoken of again.
Second: What Christmas or holiday season songs still send shivers down your spine - in a good way, that is? It could be a song or an album, or a particular version of a song.
An example for me, despite the obvious - Vince Guaraldi's theme music for the Charlie Brown Christmas special - I would have to say is Sufjan Steven's "O Come, O Come Emanuel."

It's Christmas. Baby, Please Come Home.

Because of family obligations today, I wasn't able to attend church this morning. Nothing really new there. We (as a couple at least) have missed probably more than half the services since Joss was born. That's neither atypical nor criminal. But today was the last Sunday of Advent, the Sundays leading up to our celebration of the birth of our Savior and Lord, and I love sermons on the incarnation. I would have especially appreciated something from that lineage today, and more so because we are a part of a new church that tries to bridge the gap between the more ancient and modern worlds of the Body of Christ.

In any case though, the Advent Prayer for the week:

Today we relight the first three candles of the Advent Wreath — the candles of HOPE, PEACE and JOY.

Now we light the fourth candle of Advent. This is the candle of LOVE.

Jesus demonstrated self-giving love in his ministry as the Good Shepherd. Advent is a time for kindness, thinking of others, and sharing with others. It is a time to love as God loved us by giving us his most precious gift. As God is love, let us be love also.

In the Book of Deuteronomy we find these words:

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
— Deuteronomy 10:17-19a

From the Gospel of John we hear:

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
— John 13:34-35

Let us pray:
Teach us to love, O Lord. May we always remember to put you first as we follow Christ’s footsteps, that we may know your love and show it in our lives. As we prepare for our celebration of Jesus’ birth, also fill our hearts with love for the world, that all may know your love and the one whom you have sent, your son, our Savior. Amen.

h/t to Scot McKnight, who I just completely stole this post from.