Popular music typically has themes of taking chances, dating new people, starting over, being young and unmarried, and dancing. Conceptually and lyrically, Christmas music is practically the complete opposite of all that. It is about coming home, feeling nostalgic, and remembering a simpler moment in one’s life or in cultural history. Holiday music reaches a deep, satisfying place in our brains. All music can activate the brain’s pleasure regions, but thanks to the brain’s filing system, Christmas music can also bring back cherished memories. Processing of tonal patterns and autobiographical events occurs in areas of the medial prefrontal cortex that overlap. This means that, even if you enjoy listening to jazz, rock metal, or emo music, you might unintentionally start to cry when you hear “White Christmas” or “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” around the holidays because your mind associates those songs with baking cookies with your grandmother when you were a child or decorating the house for Christmas. It has been demonstrated that our likelihood of loving a music increase with frequency of exposure. As many of us also connect this song to childhood, a joyful season filled with gifts and customs, as well as everything special that takes place at that time of year. And because there is a vast canon of well-known Christmas songs that are played repeatedly every year, we are exposed to Christmas songs in a manner that we are not to other genres of music. This indicates that even if we didn’t enjoy a Christmas song when we first heard it, we will probably come to like it over time if we hear it again and over again. The “exposure effect” is at work here. People frequently select traditional Christmas tunes, which we’re classifying as anything that was released before 2010. It seems that most listeners prefer earlier Christmas songs, from “White Christmas” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” through “All I Want for Christmas” and “Last Christmas.” This is because Christmas is so ingrained in tradition that many of us develop our own customs, such as using the same Christmas decorations and carols year after year. The nostalgia element is quite strong during the holiday season; thus, the older Christmas songs always seem to prevail. Millennials are the generation most likely to enjoy Christmas music (people between 18 and 34). In fact, an amazing 36% of all fans of Christmas music are millennials. People adore holiday music, which has been around for a very long time. After all, this is the happiest season of the year. This time of year, is eagerly anticipated throughout the entire world due to the immense happiness it offers to individuals. Holiday music is something that will always be ingrained in our hearts since it makes everyone feel so much joy.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Lynn chapter.