A dream of Christmas

One of the less well known Christmas pop songs is called “I believe in Father Christmas” by Greg Lake. It reached number 2 in the charts in December 1975 but because the lyrics seem quite bleak, it has not achieved the recognition of some other Christmas pop songs.

It is a song about an adult looking back at Christmas and remembering how as a child he was told that Christmas would be perfect. There would be snow and Father Christmas would come. So Christmas seemed like a magical time. But then the reality hits. On Christmas Day it rains and as a child he began to realise that Christmas wasn’t as magical as he’d been told.

“And I believed in Father Christmas
And I looked to the sky with excited eyes
'Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
And I saw him and through his disguise”

Something that marks this song out from many Christmas pop songs is that it mentions the real Christmas story. It is debateable whether or not Greg Lake is being anti-religious. (In interviews he has said he wasn’t.)

“They sold me a dream of Christmas
They sold me a Silent Night
And they told me a fairy story
'Till I believed in the Israelite”

He claims that he was protesting more at the way Christmas is commercialised and the way everything – even the birth of Jesus – is sold like a product.

All of us know that very often the true Christmas story gets lost in the commercialisation of Christmas. But even if it is heard, very often people just have a romanticised image of the “little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay”. But we are not worshipping a cute baby. We are celebrating the birth of God’s own son who came bringing salvation to us all.

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.


Amen to that.