What's the deal with Christmas carols?

My mom officially broke out the Christmas music today, even though I told her it was too early. I was listening to some random Starbucks Christmas cd that was playing in the kitchen while I made an apple pie, trying really hard to pretend the happy, repetitive songs weren't actually Christmas songs. Yeah, that didn't work so well.
So I gave up trying to ignore it and then I started thinking about the songs I was hearing. Like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Which is possibly the worst Christmas song ever.
'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glowed. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas Eve Santa came to say, "Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" Then all the reindeer loved him, as they shouted out with glee, "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history!"'
And we wonder why our society only likes the cool, popular people. If it's okay for reindeer, it must be okay for us too!! Never mind going against the flow and being individualistic; it's all about being in the 'in' crowd. Which you aren't if you're weird. Unless you do something really awesome like guide Santa's sleigh through the fog.
And then there's the whole 'you better watch out, you better not cry' song that seems to me to be a ploy to threaten kids into submission ('he sees you when you're slepping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if youv'e been bad or good so be good for goodness sake')because Santa is stalking them. Okay, yea-- no wait, back up. Santa is a stalker?!? And this is the person every little kid believes in at one point or another? And he brings them presents and toys and candy...hang on. Isn't that a little bit like taking candy from a stranger? Which is what parents generally tell kids NOT to do? And he's purported to come down the chimney. Umm...breaking and entering much? I think Santa needs to be arrested. He's creeping me out.
And whoever decided to call him Santa anyway? That means saint in Spanish. So...shouldn't Santa be some sort of Hispanic then? And shouldn't he be saintly and non-stalkerish?
Then you have songs about magical snowmen and partridges and hippopotamuses and front teeth. These would appear to be newer songs competing against the old songs...like the ones that present the beginning of the gospel message. Hmm...I wonder why all these materialistic, ridiculous, catchy songs are being entirely overplayed while songs like 'What Child Is This?' and 'O Holy Night' are passed over. And yet at the same time so many secular artists have recorded traditional carols. Did they ever stop to think about the lyrics? Did they ever wonder why that particular baby's birth was so special? Did they consider why the song would be so enduring if it was absolutely meaningless?
All that nonsense is to say that pretty much, it seems to me that our culture absorbs the frivolous and the absurd as it appears in Christmas songs and pays attention to the materialistic messages in them, but completely ignores the deeper meaning of so many long-standing Christmas carols that declare the news of our Savior's birth. And small wonder. Not only do they not want to hear it, but notice this Christmas season: after listening to the music that will be played absolutely EVERYWHERE starting tomorrow, what gets stuck in your head more easily or frequently: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, or I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas (or any in that particular category: Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, all those songs about Santa, all those songs about mistletoe, all those songs about having a merry Christmas in terms of lots of stuff and self-indulgence, etc....)? I know which ones are going to be stuck on replay in my head. And they're not the ones I'd choose.

- Posted from my iPod :)