I'll listen to Christmas music whenever I want, thank you very much

Joyful Christmas by Johansen Viggo (1891)

I have a newborn boy in a house with an 18-month-old daughter who decided to get hand, foot, and mouth the moment we got home with our son.

But honestly, I don't need to justify to you why my Christmas Tree is up and Nat King Cole is singing my favorite carol, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," over the sound bar in my living room while I eat my fourth, fifth, or maybe sixth sugar cookie with red and green sprinkles (also, please note that cookie dough snagged before the cookies are baked does not count toward your cookie total; I hope that's helpful).

Also, Grammarly told me I needed to write some short sentences. So, shut up.

It's not Christmas until I've heard Michael Martin Murphey sing "That old north wind, howling high up in the timbers" from "Christmas on the Line." I hear it, and I can smell the cinnamon scent of my parents' house in Johnson City. There were two CDs in my parents' 6-CD stereo: Murphey's "Cowboy Christmas" and Kenny G's "The Classic Christmas Album."

Mom has the Christmas Tree up in the corner and underneath it is something I’ve forgotten because I remember the tree and not the presents.

When I hear Alabama's "Christmas in Dixie," I can see my Aunt Fran and Uncle Steve's house on Scioto Rd. That year, my brother Nat rediscovered country music, so he loaded up a blank disc with country Christmas tunes. That was our soundtrack for the ride from Nana and Dee Daw's house on Tall Pine Rd. Through Unicoi, past the VW Bug covered in Christmas Lights with a glowing Santa inside, and up to Steve and Fran’s house.

Every year, I have an album (what the CD has become) that is the soundtrack for that Christmas. In 2023, I was in a jazzy mood with guitarist Joe Pass's Six String Santa.

The year before, it was The Oh Hello's brilliant and beautiful concept album, The Oh Hellos' Family Christmas Album. It's 22 minutes long. Find somewhere, put it on, and let them tell you a story.

In 2021 I got into Phil Wickham's Christmas. That was my wife and I's first married Christmas. We went to Kansas City to see some friends, and I forced her to go to Andy's Frozen Custard one night and then again the next night.

In the long drive-thru line (in case the person at the window recognized us in judgment), I heard Phil's version of "What Child Is This" and stopped mid-sentence to talk about something mundane because I was sniveling and holding back from crying.

I do that a lot with Christmas music. I love it when the songs tell the story—the one that gave all the other Christmas stories the idea that we're supposed to believe in something this time of year. And not just believe in it, but feel the hope in our bones, live it in our kindness to our neighbors, and celebrate it by gathering with our people.

The Oh Hellos' album starts with "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," and I used to not like it because it was sad. Christmas is a happy time with lights and sweet coffee drinks. But then I became an adult who was willing to feel his emotions, and I loved it. "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" fades into quiet spanning 400 years.

And then they start humming the melody of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." And I feel the story, the hope, the kindness, and a celebration that wants to turn on every light in my house with a bright orange bulb so it spills into the street through our open front door.

And there isn't a year that I don't need that.

So yeah, I'll start listening to Christmas music whenever I dang well please.