Your local stores are “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and dreaming of a “White Christmas” right after Halloween these days. But we can make our homes oases of contemplation and waiting. Instead of playing your favorite Christmas playlist when you’re home, build a music list centered around Advent. 

Advent songs in anticipation of Christmas are one of our treasured Christian traditions. And our ancestors in faith had a real insight into human psychology – denying ourselves of a pleasure for a short period makes the joy that much more exciting when it finally arrives!

So let’s enter into this time of waiting by waiting with a curated playlist.

Your List!

Here are some options to get your playlist started! Find them on Spotify or your favorite music streaming service.

• O Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Of the Father’s Love Begotten
• Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming
• On Jordan’s Bank
• I Was Glad (Henry Purcell)
• Wake, Awake, the Night is Dying
• Maria Walks Amid the Thorn
• People, Look East
• O Come Divine Messiah
• Vox Clara
• Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme (J.S. Bach)
• The Angel Gabriel
• Rorate Caeli
• Come Thou Redeemer
• Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending
• Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

Of course, be sure to add the entire first part of Handel’s Messiah to any Advent playlist (save the second part for after Christmas!).

Off-line Options

If you’re going app-free for Advent and would like a good, old-fashioned CD instead, here are a few Refine favorites!

• Advent at Ephesus
• The Advent of Christmas (Matt Maher)
• Arise, Shine! Advent Festival of Lessons & Carols (Salisbury Cathedral)

While society rushes into Christmas earlier each year, we can turn off the noise. Great sacred music turns out the noise and helps us enter that counter-cultural time of preparation and hope in order to celebrate Christmas with greater solemnity. 

Think of the joy of finally singing a long-anticipated and much-loved Christmas carol – the more we yearn for it, the greater the excitement when it finally arrives.