I like Christmas songs*

*with the exception of Christmas songs.

People think it's strange that I like Christmas music - love it, in fact. I've finally realized why. Most people associate Christmas music with songs like this:

"I want a hippopotamus for Christmas
I don't think Santa Claus will mind, do you?
He won't have to use our dirty chimney flue
Just bring him through the front door,
that's the easy thing to do"

Rant:

Songs like this are annoying to me. They grate on my nerves. I know that they're amusing, nostalgic tributes to a quaint American tradition. That's one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it is that America has trivialized Advent until nothing about it resembles what Christmas actually stands for. So these are songs that are really annoying in themselves, but they also represent the materialistic travesty that Christmas has become. So twice as annoying.

The Christmas songs that I do love are quite different. They speak of the haunting majesty of Advent, of the shadow of the cross hanging over the lonely stable. Plus the words are poetry in themselves. I mean, people don't speak like this anymore:

"Shepherds why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong? What the gladsome tidings be, which inspire your heav'nly song?"

This is what I mean when I say I like Christmas songs.