I cannot pinpoint one single moment when it became apparent that our attitude toward Christmas had morphed from all-in enthusiasm to, “We’re queer, we’re here, we’re over it.” Yet I recall an epiphany in 2000 as my late husband and I were loading the car for our trek from New Jersey to Connecticut to join the annual family Christmas dinner. We’d pared our holiday baking to a quality-over-quantity bare minimum for the inevitable cookie exchange. We wore comfy clothes with nary an appliquéd ornament in sight. And we’d left all our classical vocal CDs—Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, Luciano Pavarotti et al—behind on the shelf from which we’d never removed them in the days leading up to Christmas. Rather than grand operatic caroling accompanied by lush orchestras and choirs, we’d opted for Christmas parody albums by Bob Rivers, Dr. Demento and others, along with a few jazz and blues favorites, to keep us entertained.

We barreled along I-95 in fine spirits, each with one of our dogs strapped on our laps (our emotional support animals, beloved by our nieces, tolerated by everyone else), belting out “The Most Offensive Song Ever” from South Park’s Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics, and all was right with the world. (No, I’m not providing a link, but I won’t judge you when you look it up: just be forewarned it’s aptly named and totally NSFW.) Et voilà! Just like that I believed myself forever immune to the emotional manipulations of Christmas. But then I tuned into our local classical station a quarter-hour before the start of a Saturday Met broadcast last December as they aired this recording of Reger’s “Maria Wiegenlied” sung by Jamie Barton. Her rendition of the Virgin Mary’s lullaby is so simply beautiful that it touched my heart and brought gooseflesh—and made me grateful to be alive and still able to be so moved by music at any time of year.