Rich Lowry: America's greatest Christmas classic

It meant more then

Whereas Berlin's composition has proved its enduring appeal across more than half a century, Justin Bieber's or Cee Lo Green's latest holiday numbers probably won't. In an essay in The New Republic, Jonathan Fischer asks what has become of the golden age of pop Christmas songs between the 1930s and 1950s that not only gave us “White Christmas,” but “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and such lesser standards as “Silver Bells,” “Santa Baby” and “Frosty the Snowman.”

Well, the writing was better, the standards higher, the culture more charming and less abased. But Fischer notes something else — Christmas meant more. “As the religious purpose of Christmas has gotten increasingly remote,” he writes, “pop songwriters seem to have less to say about it” and “a traditional and sentimental version of Christmas ... doesn't appeal to the wider, more fractured popular culture the way it once did.”

Maybe we can't make great Christmas songs anymore, but we can still listen to them, and that will have to be consolation enough. May your days be merry and bright.