I’ve been sitting with a question this season that refuses to resolve neatly.
Why do I still love Christmas music?
I know the stories aren’t historically accurate.
I know Jesus wasn’t born in December.
I know the Church layered doctrine over older pagan festivals and called it tradition.
I know many of the voices I grew up loving belonged to men whose lives and behaviors don’t hold up under modern light.
And yet—every year, from the day after Thanksgiving until the day after Christmas, I listen.
I have my favorites.
I know all the words.
My body softens when they come on.
Reflection pause:
What traditions do you return to automatically each year—without fully knowing why?
At first glance, nostalgia feels like the obvious answer. Childhood memory. Warmth. Familiarity. A time when the world felt smaller and someone else was holding the structure.
But then I asked myself: Is nostalgia enough?
Is it enough to keep listening to music rooted in stories I don’t believe and sung by men I wouldn’t admire if they were alive today? Is nostalgia avoidance? Is it denial? Is it weakness?
Or… is it simply human?
Reflection pause:
When you say “nostalgia,” what do you actually mean—comfort, memory, belonging, safety, grief?
Christmas Music, Origins, and the Stories We Inherit
Lately, I’ve been asking a slightly different question:
Do I actually know where these songs came from?
Not just who sang them—but why they were written in the first place.
Because here’s something we rarely pause to notice:
Not all “Christmas music” is religious. Not even close.
Many of the songs we hear on repeat every December weren’t written as hymns or declarations of faith. They were written about winter. About longing. About home. About love, loss, memory, war, separation, hope, and the quiet ache of being human at the end of a year.
They became “Christmas songs” because they mentioned snow. Or December. Or coming home. Or bells. Or simply because they landed in the cultural window we now label the holidays.
Over time, they were painted with a religious brush—not because they were theological, but because we bundled everything reflective, sentimental, and winter-oriented into one season and one soundtrack.
Some songs were written as secular reflections and later absorbed into religious culture.
Some were written for films or radio.
Some were written to comfort people during war or economic hardship.
Some were never meant to be sacred—just human.
And maybe that’s what I’m responding to.
Not doctrine.
Not myth.
Not even nostalgia, exactly.
But the way music becomes a container for collective feeling.
Reflection pause:
If you stripped away labels—Christmas, sacred, traditional—what emotion is actually being carried by the music you love?
Winter has always been a season of storytelling. Long before organized religion, humans marked darkness with music, fire, ritual, and repetition—not because the stories were literally true, but because they helped us get through.
Music does that.
It carries what words alone can’t.
And knowing better doesn’t necessarily mean listening less.
It can mean listening more skillfully—with more context, more discernment, more compassion.
Not everything we keep is because we’re asleep.
Some things we keep because they still serve us—just differently now.
Reflection pause:
Where in your life have you confused awareness with the need to renounce?
Simplifying Isn’t Quitting — It’s Choosing
The year was 1996.
I had an eight-year-old and a three-year-old. I was in Target, volleying all the usual childlike wonder of toys and holiday marketing, trying to buy presents for far more people than I could comfortably afford. Picking Christmas cards for a way-too-big mailing list. Decorating the entire house—eight totes of stuff. Coordinating schedules. Wrapping. Mailing. Cooking. Baking. Keeping the magic alive for my kids… and for myself.
And then I saw this tiny book. Maybe three by five inches. The cover looked like a wrapped gift. The title was something like Simplifying the Holidays.
It felt heaven-sent.
I bought it. Took it home. Read it cover to cover.
It was written in single-sentence advice. The opening explained how to use the book: each sentence was meant to be spoken aloud, so you could notice how it felt inside your body. It wasn’t meant as a quick fix—though you could absolutely ditch everything and start over next year if you wanted.
That year, I was already committed. So instead of blowing it all up, I scaled back.
I sent half the cards—only to people who had sent me one the year before.
Each person got one gift instead of a box of goodies.
I stopped stressing over the holiday schedule with my kids and my ex.
He had them Christmas Eve overnight. As much as it pained me to give up filling stockings, I did—because it was stressing me out. Instead, they got a goodie box from Mom with all the things I would have put in the stocking.
That book marked the beginning of me taking back my time, my energy, and my sanity.
Reflection pause:
What was the first moment you realized the holidays were costing you more than they were giving?
It was the beginning of working through years of have to, family tradition, religious dogma, and—most importantly—personal should-coulda-woulda guilt and shame.
That little book went on to impact every aspect of my life for the next twenty-plus years, until it stopped being something I practiced and became something I was.
Reflection pause:
What simplifying choices have quietly shaped who you are today?
Gift-Giving, Guilt, and Not Coating the Truth
This week, in a women-only Michigan travel group, someone asked for our weekly win. I shared this:
I wasn’t able to gift my adult children any gifts this year and gifted my grands a card good for one adventure and one book to be used when they are ready. I survived the self-imposed guilt and shame. 💗🎄🌟
A woman replied:
“It’s not about the presents. It’s having them there. Hugs.”
And I responded:
Peace—to an extent, yes it is. But when it’s a holiday based on gift giving (modern interpretation, not religion), it is a bit about the gifts.
The grands’ gifts—an adventure and a book—is something we did last year and they loved it. I knew it would be well-received.
But never in 30+ years have I ever not gifted my children something. It stung a little. I recognize it for what it is and survived it. I won’t coat it with platitudes. It stung. I survived.
This isn’t a reflection of my kids’ or grands’ attitudes—they understand. But to say it isn’t about the gifts is willfully blind to modern culture and belief culture. No shade. Just my thoughts and opinion (we all have one 😉).
Reflection pause:
Where do you feel pressure to soften or spiritualize an experience that actually just hurts?
This is where integrity lives.
Not in pretending something doesn’t hurt.
Not in coating experience with “it’s all fine.”
Not in bypassing grief with spiritual language.
It did sting.
And I did survive it.
Knowing better didn’t mean shaming myself. It didn’t mean rewriting the moment into something prettier. It meant staying with the truth—without making myself wrong.
Reflection pause:
What would it feel like to let an experience be true without fixing it?
Staying With the Question
Holiday stress, nostalgia, tradition, music, gifts, guilt—none of these are problems to solve. They’re invitations to notice.
What no longer brings you peace?
What are you carrying because you always have?
What would it feel like to scale back—not because it’s “better,” but because it’s kinder to you?
You don’t have to justify your experiences because new knowledge says something is now “bad.” Growth doesn’t require renunciation. It requires curiosity.
Knowing better often means:
more exploration
more kindness
more open-mindedness
more willingness to sit in complexity
Sometimes the most honest thing we can say is:
This hurts. I’m aware. And I’m still here.
And sometimes… it means pressing play on a song you don’t fully believe in anymore, but still recognize as part of your human story.
Not everything needs to be resolved.
Some things just need to be witnessed.
Final reflection pause:
What are you allowing yourself to keep this season—not out of habit, but out of honesty?
