I have noticed, for the first time this year, that our local radio stations are playing absolutely no Christmas songs that aren't entirely secular. Last year, we were hearing all of the more traditional Christmas songs along with the secular ones, but not at all this year, except on Christian radio. Our school Christmas pageant, however, will include traditional Christian Christmas carols as well as the secular music. I diverted my Amazon Smile donations from our local library to a Constitution Camp run by someone I know when they decided to name their annual book sale a Holiday Sale rather than a Christmas sale, as before. That's a little thing, I know, but so was changing my funding.
I don't listen to radio and ha ent been to a school pageant since last Christmas so I can't say if it's changed here. I do hear tradional Christmas Carols in stores though.
We just went to Walmart, and neither Bobby or myself remembers hearing any kind of music, Christmas or otherwise. We are in the Bible Belt here, so most of the time, stores play actual Christmas carols, even the big corporate stores like Walmart. Since we are deep into the Christmas shopping frenzy now, by this time of the month , you usually hear Christmas songs just about everywhere. I think that they had music the last time we went to Walmart, and also at Sam’s Club; but I am not positive about that. I will start paying more attention.
I was thinking of stores in the mall @Yvonne Smith ...I don't know if my supermarket plays any music at all. I do know Trader Joe's plays oldies from the 60's all year but I didn't pay attention if they were playing Christmas music.
Good for you @Ken Anderson .. I'm not particularly religious, but I'm tired of this trend of removing the Christian meaning from Christmas, calling it a ''holiday'' was the start of the slippery slope... and that began in the USA... we've not got too far down that road here in the UK, although they are pressing hard for us to say ''holiday'' for fear of upsetting certain minorities... but people are kinda digging their heels in and trying to keep the Christ in Christmas... I rarely listen to the radio except for in the car ... as for the Carols..I can't say..I haven't been out the door for 2 weeks much less visit a mall...but my husband did the grocery shopping the other day and he said the Christmas music was playing in the stores.. but he didn't elaborate... Hopefully I'll get out to the mall soon, and hear for myself...
We are experiencing the same here in Canada in that they are slowly replacing every "Merry Christmas greeting" with a "Happy Holidays" one instead. I agree that we need to "dig in" .... and IMO do what we can to protect our traditions or else they will be lost.
I didn't notice any Christmas music at Albertson's the other day, or at UPS, etc. A few years ago my husband and I attended a Christmas program that the Mother's Day Out Program at our Savior's Church was putting on. Our then youngest grandson was a part of this program. The children sang a lot of Christmas songs but all of them were secular and no where in the Program was the birth of Christ mentioned or read about, etc. This being the Church we attend at times and knowing the Mother's Day Out Director...I asked her why they had left out Jesus since that is what Christmas is all about. She told me they had kids in the MDO program that were from all kinds of religions...and some that were no religion and to not offend their parents they kept the program secular. Maybe in a secular building that would have been okay...but this was our Church who definitely believes in Jesus Christ and I felt it was totally wrong to leave Him out of the Christmas program...and told her so. If it was just a regular MDO program they were doing that would have been different...but leaving Christ out of the Christmas program when His Birth is supposed to be the main reason for even having Christmas did not sit well with me at all.
“Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” A very old German Christmas carol, usually sung by a choir. We sang it for the Christmas program in school one year. I think this is a nice version. Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
There is just no getting around the fact that December 25th is Christmas Day. Even our federal government has recognized that fact since 1870. IMO all people should be able to share a Christmas wish no matter what they believe or don't believe about religion.
I didn't put this post in this thread. It was moved here later. Please don't interpret anything I said as being a response to any of the previous comments in the thread. Thanks. -Nancy
My Bad! I think your beautiful post belongs here! Thanks Nancy, for reminding us of the 200 year Milestone of Silent Night!
I'll put on Christmas music on Pandora after the wife heads off to work. Where she works in retail, they of course play seasonal music continually and she gets a little tired of it. Mostly I'll play classical ones, not sure sometimes if they are secular or not, but have the feeling that most had religious undertones. And when she is gone, I can play them at the volume level that they deserve...