a sad song's best for winter

melancholy holiday music

Christmas, the secular holiday, is nostalgic. As a religious holiday, Christmas looks forward, but as a secular holiday, it looks backward. Every Christmas contains Christmases past, particularly if you come from a pack rat family, which I do.¹ You look at things and you know that you got them at this or that time, that you were feeling this or that way, that this or that particular bespoke family tradition started with this or that family member. You remember that every year you intend to do something you never do, the not doing of which is almost its own tradition. There are other things in life to feel this way about other than Christmas, but Christmas has its codified smells, sounds, movies, and colors. It is also everywhere. Even if you do not yourself observe or even like Christmas you are nonetheless subject to its sense of circularity, of adding the newest layer to the two thousand year matryoshka doll. It might happen against your will, but it will happen.

So outside of religio…