Magical Ambient — Winter Holidays — Calm Playlist

What makes music sound so Christmassy? During the past few months of this year, as in those same months of any year, we’ve been hearing a great deal of Christmas music. Holiday music burrows into a sweet spot in our brains’ wiring. All music can stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers, he said, but holiday music can evoke treasured memories on top of that, courtesy of the brain’s filing system. Tonal patterns and autobiographical events are processed in overlapping regions of the medial prefrontal cortex. That means that even though you might be into avant-garde jazz, death metal, or emo, the rest of the year, you may involuntarily turn to mush when you hear “White Christmas” because your brain associates that song with baking cookies in grandma’s kitchen when you were 6. An important reason is a great musicality they exhibit. Many of the great melodies and lyrics in modern music make up our favorite carols. I’m sure you have heard someone say, “they sure don’t write songs like that anymore”. There