I’ve been asking myself the same question for years around the holidays: When the heck did “My Favorite Things” become a Christmas song?

If I were to turn on the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station right now, I’d probably hear at least one version of “My Favorite Things” before we hit another commercial block courtesy of Andy Williams, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé, and it’s always puzzled me. I associate the song with The Sound of Music, not the holidays, so why must I be forced to endure weeks of this radio station playing a song from a movie I can’t stand.

Now, before you say anything, yes, I do just avoid the song when possible; in fact, I’ve stopped listening to that station altogether because their selection of songs got so milquetoast and repetitive that I couldn’t take it anymore. There’s a limit to the amount of Pentatonix one can ingest before it becomes toxic, and I think if I heard Andy Williams sing “Doop de doo and dickery dock and don’t forget to put your sock” (or whatever the lyrics are), I was going to lose it.

Anyway, back to “My Favorite Things” and why a song from a music about singing children resisting the Anschluss became a Christmas stable. In the original Broadway production by Rogers and Hammerstein, the song appears in act one as a duet between Maria and Mother Abbess just prior to Maria being sent to oversee the Von Trapp brood. There is no Santa Claus, no Christmas tree, no holly, no mistletoe; the only Christian imagery is the fact that the two characters are nuns. Which is strong Christian imagery but not Christmas imagery. Hence the mystery. Was it always meant to be a Christmas song? Did the capitalist machine decide that a lyrical wish list was good for encouraging rampant consumerism during the holidays? Did Andy Williams simply need another song for a Christmas album? Or is the association more organic?

The answer, as it turns out, is easy to find because “My Favorite Things” has its own Wikipedia page and the source for its holiday-ness is the person who is most associated with The Sound of Music: Julie Andrews. While Mary Martin originated the role on Broadway in 1959, Andrews played Maria in the 1965 film, which would win Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Wise (director of such films as West Side Story, The Day The Earth Stood Still, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture). Whether or not you like the film or her performance, Julie Andrews is undeniably iconic as Maria. But it wasn’t her performance in that movie that made the song a holiday song, it was Andrews’ performance on a 1961 Christmas special of The Garry Moore Show on CBS that did it.

Knowing that, should I stop my pissy attitude whenever I hear the song come on and accept that “My Favorite Things” qualifies as a Christmas song? Yes. After all, songs have become associated with events many times throughout history even if they were not directly about or for them. “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”, for instance, became a World War I standard even though it was not directly written for or about the war. So, I guess Maria’s raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens can provide holiday cheer.

With that in mind, I decided to take this a little further and opened up Spotify to take a look at five different versions of the song, some of which are known for putting their own spin on its tune.

Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I need to start at the beginning, which is a very good place to start. Okay, if you want to be pedantic about it, this isn’t the beginning, but it was the beginning for me. In the film version of The Sound of Music, Maria sings “My Favorite Things” to the Von Trapp kids as a way to soothe them through a very loud thunderstorm (with “The Lonely Goatherd” being the song she sings with Mother Abbess). As a number in the film, I have to say that it really works, especially if you watch the movie instead of just listening to it. Throughout her singing and dancing around the room, Maria is obviously trying her best to come up with things to add to this list so that the kids won’t be scared of the thunderstorm, and Andrews is perfect in the moment, not just simply pausing to sing a song to them but acting as she sings, and then really selling the worry and surprise at the end when she’s interrupted by Captain Von Trapp. She set the standard for the song and if I’m being honest, I don’t think anyone’s vocal efforts really topped it.

Jack Jones (as well as Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, and any other crooner’s version). I chose this because it is historically significant: Jack Jones’ version was the first ever recorded specifically for a Christmas album. So if Julie Andrews set the standard for the song overall, Jones sets the standard for your “crooner” version. He sings with a very standard voice for singers like him with a sixties jazz background that kind of belongs in a Bond movie. It’s okay, and I have to say that out of the three or four different singers I listened to for this little category, Tony Bennett does the best job. He uses a more big band sound and channels the old school Vegas feel. Plus, Bennett has a distinct voice that is nice and smooth and a cut above so many others of his kind.

The Supremes. The last of the vocal performances I listened to, this was part of A Motown Christmas. What’s interesting to me about this version is how straightforward it is. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of what Phil Spector did to various Christmas songs on his albums (which, by the way, is still a favorite of mine). Diana Ross still has more presence than any of the men in the versions I listened to in the previous item. I will say that although the ending of the song really works, it does show you that there isn’t much you can do differently with the song.

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Or is there? This is the first of two instrumental pieces that close out my look at the song and it’s an up-tempo, kitschy piece that brings with it images of mid-century modern furniture, a big shiny aluminum Christmas tree, wafting cigarette smoke, and copious amounts of cocktails. And just like the Jack Jones’ version, it sounds like James Bond should be in the room … or maybe that’s just me equating every 1960s jazz piece with Sean Connery. But really, this was fun as hell.

John Coltrane. The winner and champion of my list, Coltrane’s version of “My Favorite Things” is 13 minutes long and you just get lost in it. I honestly have nothing more to say about it except that it’s so cool and you should go and listen to it.

So what’s the verdict? After listening to all of these versions of “My Favorite Things” do I now like this song? Is it a Christmas classic? Well, it definitely qualifies as such, so go ahead and listen all you want. But I’ll just keep jamming to “Christmas Wrapping.”