Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?
Feed the world
Let them know it’s Christmastime again.
(Bob Geldof, “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” 1984)

What is on your Christmas watch list or play list?

I’m one of those people that doesn’t want to see Christmas ads or hear Christmas music before Thanksgiving.  Growing up, we didn’t do Christmas kinds of things until you saw Santa appear in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and finished the Thanksgiving feast.  Then, let the Christmas ritual and routine begin.  I won’t go into those details here.  And, to be liturgically accurate, Advent, not Christmas, begins this Sunday, December 2.  We are weeks away from Christmas day and Christmastide.

The last few years Lisa and I have focused on the Twelve Days of Christmas, not in any religious sense as our Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopalian siblings do, but as a way of remembering that there was a time that commercial Christmas didn’t exist the way we know it now.  We are getting better at packages after Christmas during the twelve days and our tree stays up until Epiphany.  I guess you could say we try not to do Christmas before Christmas.  We have been less successful than we want.

Nonetheless, Lisa loves Christmas music and we both have some favorite films, feature length and shorts, we watch this time of year.  I don’t know if watching these films or hearing familiar melodies is meant to curate memory or induce confession?  Maybe, like much of scripture it is a both/and.

Here is some of my watchlist and playlist for Advent and Christmas.

My Watchlist Includes

My Playlist Includes

  • “Christmas in Hollis” Run DMC, 1987
  • “Christmas is the Time of Year” Ray Charles, 1985
  • “Christmas in the Caribbean” Jimmy Buffet, 1985
  • “I Saw Three Ships” Sting, 1997
  • “Do They Know It’s Christmas” Band Aid, 1984
  • “Christmas Pipes” Celtic Women, 2006
  • “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” John Lennon, 1971
  • “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” 1979
  • “Santa Clause is Coming to Town” Bruce Springsteen, 1975

However you journey, wander, or bounce through Advent be sure to go and see what God has made know to you, again, or for the first time, or like the Grinch, with his feet ice cold in the snow, puzzle till your puzzler is sore.  Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means something more.