Music Monday: It's Christmas Time Again

Shopping, Santa, Frosty, Black Friday, Rudolph, Celebrity Covers...

While talking with my students last Friday about the upcoming holidays, I was (un)surprised to realize how little they actually knew about how recently many "traditional" Christmas songs and symbols have been generated and absorbed into the public consciousness.

Like many, I suspect, most teenagers (and adults?) are under the impression that Frosty the Snowman ("born" in 1950) and Santa Claus (the popular image in the United States of whom was popularized in the mid-to-late 19th century due to the significant influence of Coca-Cola) were at the manger where Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer (1939) had taken the Virgin Mary on Christmas Eve.

That's not to be disparaging of our modern Christmas traditions, but, rather, an acknowledgment of our current national mindset and a suggestion that maybe we, as individuals and as a nation, could shift our perspective slightly.

The song above, "Do They Know It's Christmas Time at All?" was released in 1984 as part of an initiative spearheaded by (primarily) European pop stars to address starvation on the African continent. (This was, of course, followed by Michael Jackson's "We Are the World" project). As the need clearly still exists--on foreign soil and within our own borders (as seen in recent posts on Roxiticus DH, how great would it be if this idea of sharing the wealth of our insanely spend-thrift nation became as meaningful a part of our national "traditions" as the sound-activated dancing Santa?

As a child raised in the often contradictory and confusing world of Roman-Catholicism, it feels like it would be closer to the heart of my faith than purchasing another video game system (although in the short-term it may buy me goodwill at home). Surely there are other more meaningful ways to enhance our holiday season through sharing what we have with those less fortunate?