A Christmas mashup
How music can be an essential (and creative) part of Christmas tradition
Ahem, the season is upon us.
And so are the traditions we love and sometimes bemoan, but wouldn’t have any other way.
That’s because we want that sense of belonging and of connection, to feel like we’re part of a family or community even if we’re not physically in the same room. Traditions are a way to connect us to past generations and to remember family who are no longer with us.
And those traditions we remember from when we were young and that we insist on repeating year after year provide a sense of continuity, bringing us back to ourselves as excited little kids or cynical (but still excited) teenagers.
A big part of this is, of course, the music. Why else would we still be singing the same carols year after year, or find ourselves once more crooning Santa Claus is Coming to Town or Winter Wonderland, songs that were both written in the 1930s?
But there’s nothing to say you can’t get creative with Christmas, do a little tweaking of both traditions and the music that comes with them.
My little family has done just that, sending out our own versions of Christmas songs every year instead of Christmas cards. We started when our daughter was three-years old. We’ve done reggae and bluegrass and jazz and heavy metal versions of songs, played around with harmonies and words, and dug out obscure carols no one has ever heard of.
This will be our seventeenth year. How’s that for a tradition?
A Christmas mashup
Which brings me to my mashup of Jingle Bells and Last Christmas.
Reader, these two songs are on heavy rotation in my music studio, with students of all ages desperate to do their own versions.
You’d think I’d be heartily sick of both of these songs, and I am, I am! But then I wondered what it would be like to put them together, a bit of a cathartic experience, I must admit, like felling two enemies at once. And an experience that turned them both into something new.
So here it is. Ho ho ho.