The snow started falling in Seattle on Monday evening, just as the shortest day of the year came to an end. I took a little video that wound up having a bit of “Christmas in Jail” in the background (more on this later), but the song in my head at that moment was “I Believe in Father Christmas” by Greg Lake and Peter Sinfield. “They said there’d be snow at Christmas,” Lake sang in the 1970s. But in 2020, the snow fell on the solstice instead, and somehow that seemed more fitting in a year when we’ve learned how closely we are connected, to each other and to the Earth.
Holiday music is a deeply personal matter. Most of us have seasonal songs we cherish and others we’d be fine with never hearing or singing again, as well as songs that have gained shades of complexity as our lives unfold and our spiritual views evolve. I still enjoy singing Angels We Have Heard on High, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, and other tunes that evoke happy memories of times spent caroling with my childhood church choir, even as I’ve come to love a wider palette of music that reflects the many ways people celebrate light coming amid the deepest darkness.
In that spirit, the rest of this week’s post is the Surely Joy 2020 holiday jukebox, with a selection of songs that may not immediately come to mind when you consider the sounds of the season. It’s accompanied by a longer playlist on Spotify, including many songs nominated by my friends when I solicited suggestions on Facebook this week. Enjoy and be well, and I’ll see you here next week with some final thoughts on what I’ve learned in 2020.