Listening to Christmas music is good for you

Do you know what the best thing about Christmas music is? That it’s always the same ten songs that are played. That makes it so quaint.

You don’t hear them all year, of course not, but suddenly it’s just the same little tune on the radio. Driving Home for Christmas, War is Over, Do They Know It’s Christmas, Last Christmas, All I Want for Christmas, So This is Christmas, those kinds of classics. Year after year. I can dream every little bell and jingle. A kind of celebration of recognition, because with every song you quickly think: wow, oh yes, this one. And that brings out that ultimate Christmas feeling, precisely because they are traditional songs that you also listened to as a child. It evokes nostalgic and happy feelings. You suddenly remember your dancing drunk mother from last year. Or that cutie at the Christmas party with whom you kissed in a corner. Or laughing with your father. The partying and hours of dressing up and fussing with your sisters.

That’s true, say neuroscientists. When you listen to Christmas music, those parts of your brain linked to emotions are activated. Memories really come to the surface because of this. In your hippocampus, if you’re wondering. It can really help people who are feeling down, because it lifts you up mentally and even physically, those cheesy songs. We’re not making it up: it all happens automatically in your brain. So you’re actually a nice person if you love those eternal sugary Jingle Bells and Sleigh Ride and the works of Michael Bublé. You love your past. You cherish traditions, family AND memories. Good for you.

So turn on that Sky Radio. And everyone who whines that it’s ‘sweet and boring and dull stuff’: don’t listen to them. Just turn it up extra loud Justin Bieber with Mistletoe to shut them up. Or Britney Spears with My Only Wish This Year. Completely underrated songs, as far as we’re concerned. And we only have fourteen days…