The list of the top 30 most-played Christmas songs of all time, compiled by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) show nearly two-thirds of these songs were written in the 40s and 50s -- when the baby boomers were small children.
Overwhelmingly, reports The Washington Post, the sound of Christmas is trapped in the mid-20th century. Web comic artist Randall Munroe (of XKCD fame) made this observation back in 2009, when ASCAP released its original list of the 20 top Christmas songs of the 2000s: "Every year, American culture embarks on a massive project to carefully recreate the Christmas of Baby Boomers' childhoods," he wrote. Or, more concisely, "an 'American tradition' is anything that happened to a Baby Boomer twice."
Some of my favorite Christmas songs were written in the 1940s and 1950s. It is amazing how they have stayed so relevant and stood the test of time. Generations have sung along and felt the joy of this music.
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