So much of the Christmas season, for me, is all about the music. I have no problems with you if you want to start your Christmas celebrations a little early. After Halloween seems excessive. After Thanksgiving is fair game. Then let’s bring on the real Christmas songs and the fake ones, too. I don’t discriminate. From Dec 16-31, it’s all Christmas music playing on Mental Jukebox.

The soundtrack to our lives often hit an emotional crescendo around the holidays. The songs remind us of childhood. Of family. Of friends. Of home. The famine in Ethiopia seemed worlds way from my Christmas experience. But there’s something powerfully uniting about this Band Aid classic. This song is a sobering reminder that Christmas was never about gifts and decorations. It was never about us. It’s a story of the world. Written and spearheaded by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, it had a Christmas sound to it. But the lyrics told a different, more powerful Christmas story. This was Christmas with a social conscience, indelibly etched into my childhood.

“AT CHRISTMAS TIME, WE LET IN LIGHT AND WE BANISH SHADE.”