Welcome back! Thanks to everyone who left comments on yesterday’s post expressing interest in participating. I’m looking forward to reading your posts!
Today, I thought I’d offer you videos of songs released the year I was born and the years I turned 10, 20, 30, and 40.
Christmas 1974, “Lonely This Christmas,” Mud
I’ll be honest: I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song before, although I suppose if I had, I would have assumed it was Elvis singing it. Believe it or not, it spent four years atop the charts in the UK during December ’74–January ’75.
Christmas 1984, “You Make Me Feel like Christmas,” Neil Diamond
We were a Neil Diamond family when I was growing up, so this got a lot of airtime in our household. 1984 also marked the release of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
Christmas 1994, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey
It’s so hard to believe this song didn’t come out until my junior year of college. One of the few modern Christmas classics, the song serves as the text of Carey’s new Christmas picture book and helped cement Carey’s place on the list of best-selling musicians of all-time.
Christmas 2004, “Believe,” Josh Groban
2004 was not a particularly good year for Christmas music, but included the release of the sweet animated film The Polar Express, based on one of my favorite Christmas picture books, and “Believe,” which won a Grammy Award.
Christmas 2014, “Text Me Merry Christmas,” Straight No Chaser featuring Kristen Bell
This song was written by frequent collaborators David Javerbaum, the comedy writer behind the Tweet of God Twitter account, and Adam Schlesinger, bassist for Fountains of Wayne.
Links to other holiday happenings on the web:
Wow, I’m surprised by 1994 for the Mariah Carey one too – it feels like it’s always been one of my favorites! I like the extremes for Christmas music – the super-traditional religious-y ones, or the pop ones that annoy everyone! Not for the secular traditional ones, like “Jingle Bells!” 
@Jenn: Ha! That’s awesome. I am ecumenical and catholic (both in the secular sense) when it comes to Christmas music: I like pretty much all of it, even if genres I don’t normally like.
Comment by soe 12.02.15 @ 1:42 pmI was hoping to see Do They Know It’s Christmas? for 1984. Love that song. Have you heard the Canadian one that was done for the same cause. Nothern Lights sing Tears are Not Enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJN3u1wAWIk
Comment by raidergirl3 12.02.15 @ 7:46 pm@raidergirl3: I seriously thought about it. However, while I still like the song, I’m also troubled by its Western-centric viewpoint of a continent of people, many of whom do not adhere to Christian beliefs. So I decided to go with Neil instead.
And, no, I’d never heard of “Tears Are Not Enough” or Northern Lights. How is that possible, growing up less than 300 miles away from the Canadian border?
Comment by soe 12.03.15 @ 5:43 pm