Have Yourself a Merry 40s Christmas

With Christmas Eve only a day away, I'm sure we all keep hearing the same beloved Christmas songs almost everywhere we go. I can't walk into a store without listening to "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" play in the background at least once. Year after year, it's always the same old songs. "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", like most of the other holiday songs that play constantly, traces back to the mid-20th century. In fact, the majority of our top 30 most-played Christmas songs of all time were released back in the 40s and 50s.

Most of these songs were written right after the end of World War II. During that time, people probably wanted to celebrate the war victory as well as move on to happier things. Everyone would finally be home for Christmas. Those decades also became the time of the baby boomers' childhoods. For the baby boomers, those songs represent memories of childhood happiness, economic prosperity, and overall nostalgia. It is no surprise that they are still popular today. Are we ever going to create new holiday hits that reach the same heights as the songs of the 40s and 50s? Maybe the songs go hand in hand with great periods of American history. Until we have another one of those time periods that sparks immense creativity and inspiration, I think we might stick with the same old songs for a long time.