In some church traditions, Christmas music has to wait for Christmas. Just because it’s December doesn’t mean it’s Christmastime. That’s at the end of the month. This is still only Advent. So in those churches we don’t sing Christmas carols yet, only Advent hymns.
Advent hymns aren’t about angels on high singing gloria in excelsis. They’re more about whatever those shepherds were singing before the angels interrupted. Advent songs are about waiting for that interruption — longing for it even if we’re not really sure what it is we’re waiting and longing for.
“O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is the classic Advent hymn. It broods in a minor key, with its refrain of “Rejoice, rejoice” set in a future tense, conditional and uncertain. Mourning in lonely exile here while waiting and longing for something else. That’s Advent.
Outside of church music, that’s also true of many of my favorite “Christmas” songs. They’re a bit more Advent-y than Christmas-y — more about the longing and waiting and the lonely exile. This can be melancholy, but it’s a hopeful kind of melancholy. Instead of wistful nostalgia for some imagined ideal past — which is what we get from some of the more syrupy holiday music, they offer a forward-looking wistfulness. They’re not so much about Christmas as they are about awaiting something like Christmas in the hopes that it will provide that longed-for interruption.
So let’s start with this one, “Christmas TV,” from Slow Club. Like many people, I first heard this song on an episode of Chuck as it played during Ellie and Awesome’s wedding. On first listen, I had no idea it was a “Christmas song” — a label for which it just-barely seems to qualify. You could argue that it’s about being halfway out of the dark which, as the Doctor says, is what Christmas is all about. Or you could decide that the longing and waiting and awaiting of that lovely “Come on home” bit at the end resonates with the same longing and waiting and awaiting of “O Come, O Come,” and that maybe this works more as an Advent song.
In any case, I like it.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In