Music with the Message of Christmas
November 24, 2021 by Tony Weir
I love Christmas music…
And I hope it shows…
I’ve been programming The House of Praise all-Christmas music format for over 20 years and I look forward to it every year. This year I’m hearing that people are ready for Christmas music… maybe earlier than ever! That’s why we started earlier than ever… with our Christmas Preview Weekends on the House of Praise.
(Note: Beginning the day after Thanksgiving, The House of Praise network will go “All-Christmas”... AND… we’ll begin mixing in some Christmas Hits along with our Christian Hits on The House FM network. Plus, you can stream both networks online, on the app or on your smart speaker device!)
My love of Christmas music began when I was a kid. We lived about 40 minutes from my grandparents’ house where we spent each Christmas Eve. Driving home those nights, the radio stations had already switched to uninterrupted Christmas music and I loved listening to it all the way home. As I got a little older, I carried that over to Christmas morning where I would wake up early and turn on the radio waiting for my parents to wake up.
Now… to answer a couple of common questions...
WHY DO WE PLAY SECULAR CHRISTMAS SONGS?
Many people ask why we play non-religious (or secular) Christmas songs on our Christian radio station. Let me share what our Christmas “plan” has been for many years. The Christmas songs we play are “coded” in certain ways. One of those is “Secular” and another is “original.” By using the codes we are able to achieve the following:
- No 2 songs back-to-back can be secular. Meaning if someone listens over the course of about 5-6 minutes, hearing at least 2 songs… they WILL DEFINITELY hear a Christ-centered song.
- We also separate “original” songs so that the same listener is guaranteed to hear a “familiar” Christmas song… which is what people SEEKING Christmas music are wanting to find and will attract them to listen longer.
- Our philosophy is the longer they listen, the more they will hear the Christ-centered songs while still getting what they were seeking in the first place and ENJOYING it.
- (I will also say that 2 Christ-centered songs CAN play back to back at all times and often do (as long as they are “familiar” Christ-centered songs like Joy to the World, O Holy Night, etc.)