So much of the Christmas music I encounter is from the 1940s and 1950s. It seems a certain nostalgia for this time period follows the winter holidays about half the time. I’ve been trying to puzzle out why, what it’s about. If you have any ideas, please post them in the comments here.
In the meantime, here’s a song from 1941 that I happen to love. It’s not specifically about any holiday in particular, but about the weather, and since I live in a place where it’s easy to love the weather in the winter time…
Here’s Peggy Lee and Art Lund and the Benny Goodman Orchestra with “Winter Weather.” Enjoy the song and the charming slideshow of Peggy Lee!
Sappho's Torque 
The ‘holiday classics’ I cherish from my childhood date mostly from the 1940s through the early 1960s. This was a heyday for what the music industry now refers to as “vocal artists”–singers backed by whatever band or orchestra fit the music, before the tidal wave of rock and roll swept over the U.S. and drastically changed things.
My parents’ holiday LP collection included recordings from a wide range of vocal artists: Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Johnny Mathis, Burl Ives, Julie Andrews, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, John Denver (OK, 1970s there!), Glen Campbell (ditto), and groups such as the New Christy Minstrels and the Ray Conniff singers.
I think the nostalgia for these songs is largely a “They don’t make ’em like that anymore” thing. That’s not to say that no holiday music created in the ’80s and beyond is up to snuff, but there was already such a canon established that the newer songs have had a harder time achieving classic status.
Where everyday music is concerned, younger generations have happily moved on to what’s current, but because the winter holidays are so wrapped up in tradition, it’s often the older songs that stick with us. (Grain of salt: In my world, “us” equals forty-somethings–I’d be interested to see what today’s twenty-somethings consider to be holiday classics!)
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Well at least you have a quality act here. 🙂
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So glad you approve. 🙂
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