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‘Tis the season to be jolly
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Cramped in a car for many hours
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Christmas music is a playin’
Fa la la la la la, la la la.
Feelin’ spirit, that’s what I’m sayin’
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
Mariah Carey cracks my drink cup
Fa la la la la la, la la la la.
I decide that I’ve now had e-nuff
….

Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas music.
I also love my wife; who loves Christmas music even more. She can listen to those songs for hours on end day after day after day.
So on a recent trip to Morehead City- like a good husband – I let her have control of the music playlist.
You guessed it. Christmas songs, Pandora (music app) style. That computer program or algorithym or AI-generated mash-up of whatever music you want to hear kept us pretty satisfied with what we were hearing.
And then it didn’t.
I made it all the way to Goldsboro (Nearly three hours) before I decided to request a different set of songs. The spirit was gone, at least in my ears, or was it in my head?
Mariah Carey had sang three of the past five songs, Kelly Clarkson the other two. They can reach those high notes and hold them for what seems like hours.
But I didn’t speak up just yet.
Then came more songs from artists I had never heard of, and they too, found it necessary to sing the highest-pitched note they could and hold it for as long as they could. And the background music to these songs didn’t always match what was being sung. Bells would be ringing in the background. Constantly. I turned the volume down more than once just to make sure the weird noises weren’t coming from our car.
I understand that the birth of our Saviour warrants doing your best to ring all the bells around you and sing to your heart’s content. There’s nothing like the joy you can feel as you praise God to the best of your ability.
But sorry, folks.
It can be annoying.
Especially when subjected to it for hours at a time.
It made me long for more subtle, soothing music. Something like Johnny Cash singing “Little Drummer Boy,” or Willie Nelson singing “Pretty Paper.”
We were headed to a family get together, so even more appropiately, we should have been listening to Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family.”
It hits all of the low notes.
– Mike Barnhardt