Needing a Little Christmas

Posted: 11 Nov 2020
Author: Veronica White

Many may not know this, but I have spent much of my life in choral groups, where I have sang more than my fair share of holiday carols. For the first time this week I saw 1974’s Mame, which is a musical movie adaption of the movie Auntie Mame. About halfway through the film the familiar tune of “We Need a Little Christmas” started playing. In this scene, the characters decide to celebrate Christmas early, in fact, two weeks before thanksgiving early. It serves as a happy distraction of the Great Depression that has left Auntie Mame’s large house stripped of all but a few furnishings. They characters revel in joy and good cheer as they decorate one of the characters in tinsel and lights in lieu of a tree.

Watching this scene play out, I couldn’t think of something more perfect for what all of us could use today. In Reply-All’s podcast episode #168 “happiness Calculator vs. Alex Goldman, they discuss the hedonometer, which measures the average “happiness” of English-speaking twitter users. At one point Alex asks, what do the researchers use as a unit of happiness, or how do they communicate how “happy” is one day from another. Funny enough, the researchers say their preferred unit is a “Christmas Day”, as this is the largest, most consistent spike they have seen over time. The show then goes on to discuss how this year has been one of the “least happy” years since they started using the hedonometer in 2008.

Today, we are just about two weeks away from Thanksgiving, in the middle of a pandemic, where much seems uncertain heading into what is sure to be a bleak winter, we are in need of some Christmas level cheer.

Below is a list of songs and resources that I have found uplifting. If you know of something that could make this list even better, send me an email or fill out my contact form with a link to the source.(list updated 3/4/22).