This is more of a general thing, but I probably wouldn't have been thinking about this were it not for this project, so it makes sense to post it here.
This morning I listened to an album of Herbert Howells' church music and then an album of some music from the Home Alone movies (I don't think it really qualifies as a soundtrack, but it's pretty close), and I knew that later to-day I was going to listen to a Bach cantata and an album of Hildegard von Binden canticles. All of this made me think about sacred music, and it occurred to me that Christmas music occupies a sort of liminal space with regard to that. At its core, Christmas music is kind of religious because it's about a religious observance, but on the other hand, there's often not very much about that religious observance in Christmas songs. Take "White Christmas" or "Blue Christmas" as examples. Both are (literally) nominally about Christmas, but there's nothing about Christmas in them.
