Is Christmas Still Christmas Without The Snow?

For those of us celebrating the Yuletide Season in much warmer climes, is Christmas still Christmas without the snow?


By: Ringo Bones


Given that most of the people on planet Earth, including most of the dry land, lies in the upper part of the northern hemisphere, it is more than likely that a significant majority of us will be celebrating the Yuletide Season with snow – i.e. White Christmas. But for those of us living in much warmer climes who still consider celebrating Christmas a big deal – thanks to our Anglo-Saxon Protestant Capitalist Consumer indoctrination – can still celebrate Christmas properly without the white stuff? (I mean snow, not cocaine hydrochloride, by the way).

I do admire brave folks out there who stick out their necks to make Christmas a more egalitarian holiday in which any person regardless of faith, color, or creed can enjoy. In which I am truly grateful for Mel Tormé and Robert Wells – two great Jewish composers who toiled in the Tin Pan Alley in order to create musical masterpieces – for bequeathing humanity that Yuletide Season perennial called White Christmas. In which Irving Berlin’s rendition that was made famous by Bing Crosby is probably the first Christmas song that doesn’t contain overt religiosity when paying homage to the Yuletide Season.

Sadly, the song White Christmas had managed to indoctrinate most of us who celebrate Christmas that Christmas without snow is not Christmas at all. Given that global warming is getting worse each passing year if we don’t drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, a White Christmas could become a relic of the distant past – like a Druid religious service. But is snow really an indispensable part of celebrating Christmas?

Just because there is no snow the Nativity Scene – i.e. the traditional portrayal of the night Jesus Christ was born 2,000 or so years ago – doesn’t mean that Catholics don’t know how to appreciate a “White Christmas”. That Yuletide Season perennial White Christmas might have an inescapable metaphysical dictum on everyone when it comes to celebrating a “proper” Christmas. Luckily, there is still quite a healthy number of Yuletide Season tunes that allow you to “properly” celebrate Christmas without the snow. Unfortunately, you have to root for them because they never have been a recent part of mainstream FM’s Yuletide Music airplay list.

The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album is a testament that you can still enjoy celebrating Christmas in the warm climes of almost perpetually sunny “Califor-nah-yeah”. And Leon Redbone’s Christmas Island and Jimmy Buffett’s Christmas in the Caribbean gives you a deep philosophical insight on why those rich folks at The Hamptons vacation into the Caribbean during the Yuletide Season given that they have a perfect “White Christmas” right at their doorsteps. There are probably others out there, so you have to root them out in better independent record stores - Unless of course you’re perfectly fine with playing Islamic Devotional Music by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan during Christmas Eve.