After listening to three channels of Christmas music on satellite radio the past couple of weeks, I began to wonder how old some of those familiar carols were. For the most part, there are two types of carols, and, for lack of better names, I'll call them "Nativity carols" ('Silent Night') and "Santa carols" ('White Christmas").
After doing a little research, I was surprised to find how much older the "Nativity carols" were than the "Santa carols". In fact, the most well known "Nativity carols" were written in the 18th and 19th centuries (many not in English), while nearly all of the popular "Santa carols" were penned in the 20th century. In fact, if you look at the chart below, the only Christmas carols in existence prior to 1934 were "Nativity carols". The one exception could be "Jingle Bells", which was written in 1857, but not specifically as a Christmas song. It didn't become one until a 1902 recording.
And with that, I'll let you draw your own conclusions on why!
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