A brief season for winter’s tunes

The calendar may say that winter began on Saturday, but really it ends Wednesday, at least as far as winter songs are concerned. The sleigh bells began jingling across endless ads on TV and radio, mall Muzak, easy-listening stations and the like in mid-autumn, just about the time the jack-o’-lanterns disappeared.

But good luck hearing any of the popular songs about winter during the actual season once Christmas is past.

Granted, there’s no reason to play “Silent Night,” “O Come All Ye Faithful” or even pop standards like “White Christmas” or “The Christmas Song” once Santa returns to the North Pole. No argument here. But there’s nothing even remotely Christmas-y (other than habit, expectation, custom) about songs like “Let It Snow,” “Jingle Bells” or even that most evocative of holiday season songs, “Winter Wonderland.”

Even folks who don’t celebrate Christmas -- especially here in L.A., where temperatures in December can easily top 75 degrees -- can enjoy the mental image of snow glistening in the proverbial lane. It could, with a little imagination, be our winter anthem, the icy flip side of “Summer in the City.”

Well, forget it, it’ll never happen. Even before the decorations are packed away for the year, the holiday music gets yanked out of the CD changer and shoved back onto the shelf.

Admittedly, right about now, no one really wants to hear, yet again, about walking in a meadow and building a snowman called Parson Brown, or rediscovering that Frosty the Snowman was a jolly, happy soul.

But maybe this year, just to break from tradition, someone will, after a decent interval, put those strictly winter-related songs in rotation.

Just in time for a post-storm glimpse of those snow-capped peaks shining above the palms.

-- Jonathan Taylor