Christmas has always been a secular holiday for me. Growing up in a non-religious home, I just assumed Christmas was about giving gifts and seeing family. However, my school always made us sing (in music class) religious themed Christmas carols. The Jewish kids always were excused, and if I had known better, I would have opted out as well. In band, we always played Christian themed songs, though, I have to admit, I really liked playing them. I didn’t know any of the words, but when you’re playing in a group, it’s very rewarding to see it all come together. The music is of a style that no one writes in any more, and some of the the music is written by some of the greats, such as Handel. It was fun a lot of times, and I never even thought about the Christian themes, and it never had an impact on me.

So today I found myself listeming to the Classical Christmas channel on XM radio, simply because I really enjoy the old style songs. You don’t hear much harpsichord these days. I also have to respect the vocal arrangements. Truly great stuff.

Now while this might sound like I’m being sympathetic to the Christian side of Christmas, I would like to point out this just is reserved to the musical construction of these songs. Bill O’Reilly would consider me part of the War on Christmas, since I say “Happy Holidays.” I don’t go to church, and I think it’s an awfully big coincidence that Jesus would be born at the same as the Pagan feast of Saturnalia of early Europe. So if you catch me listening to Handel’s Messiah, don’t wish me a Merry Christmas. Either leave me alone or wish me a Happy Holidays.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 at 6:13 pm and is filed under General, Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.