Do you find Christmas carols a bit depressing or do they fill you with some kind of joy?

Joy

Most are great. Some make me smile, some make me realize the Reason for the Season!

When my boys were young we made up our own words to Walking in a winter wonderland, now affectionally sung as Walking round in wet white underpants

If I hear the mama’s shoes again before Christmas, I’ll puke!!!!

It’s fine with me unless someone is intentionally squaking.

I get very nostalgic when I hear a brass band playing carols, I used to play in a band and loved this time of year playing out in the streets etc. I think there is a certain nostalgia that comes with christmas for most of us….....perhaps we miss our childhoods in some way?

Perhaps you could focus on happier carols. Music is apparently your emotional trigger.

I love them and even singing them lifts my mood.

I love carols! They stir a bit of nostalgia inside, sure, but I like to sing them as well.

I know what you mean. “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and “White Christmas” are both sad songs, really.
Most others are uplifting, and if you are listening to a mix of Carols, it’s not too depressing.

I like some Christmas carols. Some more than others but I never feel sad when I hear any particular one.

I love Christmas Carols but they don’t make me “happy”.

I usually feel a mixture of nostalgia and sadness (would that be melancholy?). I actually like this though. It seems an appropriate way to feel at the end of the year.

I agree with Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and White Christmas falling into this category. I’d also cite River and Silent Night.

They fill me with joy, definitely. I tend to like ones like the Carol of the Bells or Britton’s A Ceremony of Carols, though – ones that are too crazy/awesome to be sad.

Here’s a Christmas carol horror story for ya:

Our worship team decided to sing carols for one of the local retirement homes, and we practiced together with hymnals before going out there of course.

Just as we are about to start, one of us suggested “Hey, why don’t we sing ALL the verses in the song, not just the ones that are traditionally used?”

Sounds harmless, we agree.

But when we launched into the first non-traditional verse, we quickly realized that we should have rehearsed, because no one knew where to put the words on the beat (ya know?). The emPHASis was on the wrong syLYble!

Train wreck for a couple of minutes…

At the end of that verse, we all just looked at each other and said at the same time: “bad idea”!

I absolutely love them. I used to be part of a choir that would go house to house singing carols. I loved it :)

I like some, dislike some and hate others. I do wish that carols were faster (I wish hymns were too) because halleluiah sung over five seconds sounds more like a dirge to me.

Tonight you’ll be moving about your day at a normal pace. Never worrying about taking an hour to finish a sentence. While you’re safe in normal time, enjoying your loved ones- there is a Christmas song left out in the loooooong cold pauses and stuck in a speed that makes snails cry.

For just a dollar a day, the price of a cup of coffee, you could help bring our songs into Relative Appropriate Time. Please, find it in your heart to send a poor lonely carol, just like this one, into RAT. When you sing carols this year- sing faster than a high slug.

We can’t do it alone- we need you to join the RAT chorus today.

Some make me very happy, sublime, and spirited. A lot of them do make me feel… not sad or melancholy, but maybe nostalgic… sort of warm and fuzzy, but peaceful and a little lonely but in a good way. Heh. But it all feels like Christmas to me, and I luurrrvve it.

Joy!

I like them. One thing that might cheer you up to to think about how some of the most famous Christmas songs were actually written by Jewish songwriters who lived in sunny Caifornia!

Over the last few years, they have made me sad. Before that, I enjoyed them. It’s hard for me to generate enthusiasm now. I feel like I’m just going to be a sad sack, and I don’t want to do that.

I feel sad and depressed too around Christmas time.Maybe because I see the world collapsing around me and every Christmas people try at least to be happy and unite and in all this time I’m alone walking in snow

I love most Christmas carols, except the one about “mama’s shoes.” Old timey ones like “Hark the Herald..” and “O, Come All Ye Faithful,” and also the ones made in the 30s and 40s. Not so much the modern ones though, i guess.

I especially love Bing Crosby’s Mele Kalikimaka.

I would say I feel neither – if a carol is sung well, I enjoy it but certainly don’t feel joy.

They fill me with some kind of ennui, from sheer, deadening repetition.

@pdworkin: Yes, but it’s a candy-coated ennui.

they’re quite warming…but they have to be sung by chamber choirs preferrably

I love them alllllll. except “santa baby” and “mary did you know”...but actually i hate mary did you know so much that it has become sort of funny so now i dont mind it so much.

The whole season depresses me and carols just reinforce the depression.

@pdworkin – GA for the use of the word ennui.

@pdworkin Now who’s the existentialist?

I find some of them quite haunting too but it’s a feeling that I strangely enjoy. On the whole I am not a fan of Christmas but there are certain carols that I love to hear. A personally favourites are Hark! The Herold Angels Sing, Once in Royal Davids City and O Come All Ye Faithful.

I do usually enjoy them the first time I hear them.

yea the first time. There’s a station in town that started playing Christmas music 10/15/09….AAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK

@Skippy: That’s way too early.

just like http://www.fluther.com/disc/63314/any-strange-associations-with-smells/, music has such power to trigger memories.

And even if they’re good ones, I’m left sad that I’m all grown up now with all the adult responsibilities…

I like them.

I don’t like the way some artists feel the need to try to make them their own to the point where they slow them down to the point where they destroy them as some have said.

“Here”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab-ViAegFAU is a good one by Dennis Deyoung that reminds me of some of the old time ones. It was released in Canada in 2007. I think it rocks.

@Naked_Homer – the other night we heard what I think was Christina Aguliera’s O, Holy Night, and she’s using all that seductive moaning in there. Really inappropriate.

@stratman37 – and she has a beautiful voice. She doesn’t need to do that.

Right!

Personally I have to listen to christmas carols because my mom is really into it. I put up the decorations outside and inside but I get annoyed listening to several versions of the same songs repeatedly. So when I’m listening to my ipod it always Three Days Grace, FlyLeaf, and Muse that I listen to. In short I like christmas carols up to a certain extent, then I just get annoyed and need to listen to rock or metal music pronto. There is such a thing as too much chistmas cheer.

I know it’s not a carol but if I here Mariah Carey singing All I Want For Christmas Is You one more time I may very well do something I will regret!!!

I love Christmas carols – they are very evocative of the annual 9 lessons and carols service when I was young. You had to get there early to get a seat!
It always began with a boy soprano singing the first verse of “Once in Royal David’s City”, and then the choir, in their crimson robes, processed.
Also, fond memories of going carol singing with the choir – loads of fun!

It depends, on what type of mood I’m in. But most of the time it brings me joy.

joy…

I find them depressing because half of them were pagan before the Christians came along

Love Christmas Carols.

I do get a little spooked by the line in “White Christmas” where it says “though the years we all will be together/ if the fates allow.” That last part kind of makes me wonder if all of my loved ones will still be alive next year. Ack!!

@answerjill That’s from “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, not “White Christmas”

@answerjill – I am not really sure if I would consider “White Christmas “or “Have yourself a merry little christmas” as christmas carols.

@dea_ex_machina You are technically correct, but I believe we can make room here for them.

@filmfann Oops, thanks!
@dea_ex_machina mm, maybe…

I love Christmas carols!

It’s Christmas itself that I find so depressing.

Oooooh….!

Jingle bells!
Batman smells!
Robin laid an egg!
The Batmobile lost a wheel
and Joker got away!

I love Christmas carols, They help me get into the mood for Christmas and like most of you a full days running around Christmas shopping can get you down, but pop on a CD of christmas carols and hey presto it’s oh come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant!

The older I get, the more depressing they become as they remind me of “younger” days; especially my lost childhood! But I have ALWAYS hated “The 12 Days of Christmas”!

They just remind me of the Christmas season and make me a little sentimental, that’s all. ;)

I still like the really old carols, the ones from medieval times.
I understand your melancholy though. I think it’s because you’ve lost your childlike anticipation now and Christmas can now seem more of a chore for grown ups than a time of magic.and mystery although you can still catch the occasional glimpses of it I think, especially when it snows.