For those of us who don’t work in retail, Christmas music can be fun. It’s festive and really sets the tone for the holiday season. Plus, there’s an element of nostalgia because we’ve been listening to these songs since we were in the womb.
However, have you ever considered how you can use Christmas music as writing inspiration? I’ve discussed music in general as writing inspiration, but today I’d like to focus on Christmas music. It sets a very specific scene in one’s mind of presents, cozy fires, and above all else, snow, snow, and more snow. Below, I’ve listed a few Christmas songs with ideas for jumping off points to help inspire your next piece.
White Christmas – Bing Crosby
Is there anything more classic than this song? This version, sung by Bing Crosby, is the best-selling single of all time with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide. When thinking about it from a writing inspiration standpoint, you can either play with or against type. If you decide to go with, you can start a scene with a character who is excited about all the snow or desperately wishing it would snow for the holidays. To go against, you could have a character who is angrily shoveling themselves out from underneath a mountain of snow.
Real Life Inspiration: Two years ago, my dad drove up to visit for Christmas. He doesn’t get snow where he lives, so he wished and wished and wished for snow. We’d been having kind of a dry winter, but on Christmas Eve, the skies opened up and my dad got his white Christmas. I should also mention that he drives a little sports car with almost no ground clearance and he still insisted he could drive it through the snow. Cut to two hours later, my husband was still digging him out of our driveway.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee
I don’t know about you, but this song always makes me think of holiday parties. Consider using this song as a jumping off point for a story about a Christmas party. Maybe it’s an office party (as we all know, those never end well) or maybe it’s a friend’s party where that one friend nobody likes has overdone it on the eggnog. Think also about the kind of people who go to parties; there are the extroverts who thrive off of get togethers and introverts who spend the entire time trying to befriend the dog and counting the minutes until they can go home.
Real Life Inspiration: A close friend of mine had to attend a holiday party last night, so I spent the entire time sending her introvert memes as moral support to get her though the party.
“Santa Baby” – Eartha Kitt
Am I the only one who thinks this could definitely turn into Santa erotica? Cute, flirty, seductive–this song has all the makings of smut if you want to take it there. It’s like the grown up companion to “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.” The only limit to this one is your imagination!
Real Life Inspiration: Okay, I admittedly don’t have any real life experience with seducing Santa Claus, but I do think there are a lot of elements about the holiday that lend themselves to sexytime. The glow of the fireplace or the lights on a Christmas tree alone make for the perfect mood lighting.
What are your favorite Christmas songs? Try using one of them as a writing exercise and then let me know what you create!
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Emily Regan 