Why You Should Listen to Christmas Music All Year

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which won’t change your price.

If Facebook can be trusted, there are two types of people in the world: those who listen to Christmas music year-round and those who only listen to it in December.

I fall in the former category as the majority of the Christmas music I like is just music that celebrates Christ and His coming…and that’s something to be celebrated year-round! And as much as I love the old Christmas carols (especially those that have lots of obscure verses!), I also enjoy songs I’ve never heard before, that take the “old” thoughts expressed in the traditional Christmas carols and make them new.

As I’ve written about before in my reviews of Rain for Roots’ other albums (Big Songs for Little Ones and The Kingdom of Heaven is Like This), I so appreciate their approach to kids’ music.

While my kids enjoy silly and nonsensical songs as much as the next group of little ones, those type of songs sometimes get a little old when listened to over and over.

So I try to add in some songs to also bring my kid’s focus back to the Jesus they’re slowly learning about in their little lives, and Rain for Roots’ songs are at the top of that list.

Like their other albums, Waiting Songs does just that.

It’s “an album of Advent” . . . emphasizing the expectation of our coming Savior.

The Waiting Songs website put it beautifully:

These songs are about making time for waiting. The King is coming and He is already here. So we practice listening, quieting ourselves, celebrating, whispering good news, and yelling shouts of joy. In the Rain for Roots family, we practice most of all by singing to ourselves, to each other, and to our children about true things. He is coming — the Joy of Every Longing Heart. Our longing hearts.

These Advent songs are unlike any I’ve ever heard.

The collection is bookended by two well-known carols, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus”. The former is my favorite Christmas song ever, and Rain for Roots’ take on it has to be one of the most beautiful renditions I’ve heard yet (and I’ve heard many!).  The other songs on the Waiting Songs album are written by Rain for Roots focusing on the emotions of Advent — anticipation, rejoicing, a somber and joyfully expectant realization of enormity of Who is coming.

My little ones’ favorite parts of the other Rain for Roots’ albums has always been hearing the “other kids singing”.

Waiting Songs continues to showcase that, and while still very kid-friendly (“Zechariah” is pretty fun to sing!), it definitely has a more contemplative mood to it than their other albums.  But considering the subject, this is very apropos. After all, “it’s hard to wait, so hard to wait”.

What is something you do to celebrate Advent? Comment and share!

(originally published in 2015)

Photography: JenniMarie Photography