So many people tell me that, by the time Christmas finally arrives, they're thoroughly sick of its music.  What a shame.

I understand the feeling, but I suspect what they’re sick of is the stuff that passes for music that starts blaring out of PA systems in restaurants, malls, and big box stores -- seemingly earlier and earlier every year.

Madison Avenue knows that music is one of the most powerful mood influencers of all.  Holiday muzak is like a drug they start pumping into our systems during the weeks leading up to Christmas, so they can get us to spend $450 billion on gifts.

I’ve dedicated my professional life to making sure people have access to good music.  The idea of their being force-fed music to influence their buying habits is offensive to me.  When it comes to Christmas music, it’s downright obscene.

Is there no sanctuary?  How do you avoid this onslaught, short of staying in bed and pulling the covers over your head from Thanksgiving to New Years?

While I’ll admit that option doesn’t sound half bad, I’ve developed an internal filtering mechanism that tunes Christmas muzak out… like those fancy headphones that cancel out white noise.  I intentionally avoid public places during Advent -- the four weeks leading up to Christmas, which are supposed to be contemplative and not yet celebratory.  When I have to enter some place of purveyance,  my sonic filter kicks into gear right away – almost as if I’m walking down the aisle with my fingers in my ears going “la la la” the whole time I’m there.

You see, I’m all about saving my ears.  Music is what makes this time of year special for me.  No ad executive is going to spoil it.

Listening to music is analogous to eating. What you listen to stays with you after it’s over, while your ears digest it and it absorbs into your system.  Proper musical nutrition leaves you with no room for fast food.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I deliberately ignored all the Holiday muzak, filling up my ears with other things.  I took off my internal filter long enough to enjoy the TSO's Sounds of the Season concert.  And for me, Handel's Messiah is a piece of contemplative art that moves through Advent and gets me ready for Christmas. 

Beyond that,  I bought a new CD by Morton Subotnick of his very abstract electronic piece Four Butterflies.  I worked my way through my double LP of the complete works of Edgar Varese.  You can’t get less Christmassy than that.

Then suddenly on Christmas Eve, I disengaged my inner filter and broke out my favorite seasonal music – all fresh from the garden!  In the past several days, I’ve enjoyed Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, the annual King’s College Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Vince Guaraldi’s jazz piano music from A Charlie Brown Christmas, and Keith Emerson’s The Christmas Album.

Ever since moving to the Pacific Northwest, an important Christmas Eve custom for my wife and me is to bundle up in the car and head to the Episcopal Cathedral of St. Mark’s in Seattle for their annual Midnight Mass.  Usually the Right Rev. Greg Rickel – who probably qualifies as the World’s Coolest Bishop – is the celebrant, and the organist and choir are among the best anywhere around.

The hymnody stemming from the great Anglican church tradition is an embarrassment of riches.  My favorites include Of The Father’s Love Begotten, While Shepherds Watched, and O Little Town of Bethlehem (the Vaughan Williams melody, please – not the dreary Protestant tune featured most often in U.S. churches).  I’m also partial to Hark the Herald (did you know this wonderful hymn is by none other than Felix Mendelssohn?), God Rest You Merry, and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (again, I prefer the old English melody Noel, not the sickly-sentimental Richard Storrs Willis tune).

My favorite of all is the now rarely-heard Venite Adoremus, harmonized by Leo Sowerby in 1941.

On the other hand, I can do without either version of Away in a Manger; for some reason, Joy To the World does nothing for me – and I find Silent Night the most boring Christmas hymn of all time.  Tell me when it’s over.

You may find that scandalous, and that’s ok.  Everyone has their own favorites that they cherish.  I’d love to hear about your likes and dislikes.

But whatever they are, don’t let Madison Avenue wreck the Holidays musically for you.  Don’t let them turn wonderful songs like Adeste Fidelis (or The Christmas Song, or O Holy Night, whatever you prefer) into the musical equivalent of a telemarketing call.

You can be intentional about the music you put into your head – and there’s no time of year when that's more important than Christmas.