Saturday, December 24, 2005

White Christmas

Many Christmas songs feature the image of snow at Christmastime. "Jingle Bells" (originally a Thanksgiving song, but now played at Christmas). "White Christmas." "Winter Wonderland." "Let it Snow." "Frosty the Snowman." "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." "I'll be Home for Christmas." "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." "Silver Bells." "Sleigh Ride."

Yet in most of the country, by far, it doesn't snow on Christmas. In fact, in much of the country, it rarely snows at any time. So what's the deal? How did snow come to be such an ever-present image?

It must be a modern thing -- few (maybe none) of the traditional Christmas songs go on ad nauseam about snow. Maybe it all goes back to Irving Berlin's White Christmas, which was sung by Bing Crosby in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn. The popularity of that song and movie had to have been influential, I guess.

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