I am SO glad that the local Christian radio station plays only Christmas songs between Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I know many people can't stand listening to carols all the time, but, as long as it is December, I love to listen to them all day. I listen when my alarm goes off to wake me up. I listen in the morning while I have my coffee. I listen when I drive to the grocery store. I listen when I'm waiting for Will to get out of school. I listen while I fold laundry. I listen while I make dinner. I listen when I drive for hours on end.
I tried to figure out what it was I enjoyed about them. I found it odd that I even enjoy listening to songs that I don't even like -- weird, huh? For example, I can't
stand the whiny, high-pitched noise of Alvin and the Chipmunks singing; yet, I smile almost all the way through the song. I decided it is the nostalgia that I like, and the music is able to make me remember so many different times in my life. After I realized it was the memories that made the tunes so much fun, I started keeping a mental list of some of the memories triggered by the music. I spent a few hours trying to match some of the carols to some old pictures, but most of the memories were made before I was taking pictures, and I didn't think to go through my parents albums while I visited them. Nonetheless, I thought I'd wander down Memory Lane and write for my children why some of these songs make me smile.
Christmas Don't Be Late
Back to the example... "ALVIN!!! (OKAY!) Christmas, Christmas time is near, Time for toys and time for cheer. We've been good, but we can't last, Hurry Christmas, Hurry fast." When I was growing up, we lived next to the Smith Family, and when my brother and I visited at Christmastime, we often got to watch a Chipmunk's Christmas show with Todd and Jared. When I hear that ridiculous song, my mind puts me back in the carefree-kid days bundled up like little Eskimos, playing with the neighborhood kids in the snow. Soon my memory flips through images of my thirteen winters in Pittsburgh, and they all blend into one story that is really made up of all of them. I remember sledding down our big hill with the light of just the moon and Christmas lights reflecting off the snow. Those happy memories stop when I get to the part about Jared sledding into a laundry-line pole or an apple tree and getting a bloody lip... I think that seemed to happen every year, though.
The First Noel
"The first Noel the angels did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay...." All through December, every lullaby I sing to the kids is a Christmas song. I aim for them to be about the original Christmas with baby Jesus, because then it is easy to end the day discussing with each child who the babe in the manger is, who the three kings are bringing gifts to, and why we bring glory to a newborn king. Sometimes, I choose to sing one they haven't heard; sometimes, I take requests. I am fascinated that Will keeps asking for "The First Noel," because it is one of my favorite songs, too. I keep trying to remember when it started being my favorite, and it goes back too far for me to define. I remember sitting on the piano bench as a little kid, singing along while I watched my mom play it. And I remember how proud I was when I learned to play it on my own and performed it at one of my first piano recitals. It is strange that in my mind's eye, I see myself playing it... second grade, maybe? But I see myself from the audience's perspective, a child in a corduroy jumper sitting on the bench on the stage at the Presbyterian church social hall with my back to the crowd. Yet, I also see my fingers dancing a bit clumsily on the white and black keys.
O Holy Night
"O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining, It is the night of the dear Savior's birth....A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices." This is another that makes my heart happy, and it sends me in a time warp back to ninth grade in Texas. We moved to Lubbock the summer before I started eighth-grade, and though I tended to make friends easily, I still felt like an outsider through eighth grade. In ninth-grade, many of my friends were good enough to be on the performing choral team, and I often was a tag-along when they were doing special performances. The Ranching Heritage Headquarters is an outside museum with lots of old buildings (homes, barns, windmills, etc.) Their team just finished a performance the night of the candlelight Christmas on the Ranch event, and we were walking through the paths on a cold night with lots of Texas stars in the sky. Arm-in-arm, about fifteen of us sang "O Holy Night"
a Capella, just like we did at our regular choir concert a few nights before. I was one of the second sopranos and I was included in the arm-in-arm... it was when I finally felt like I was not an outsider, and I realized I really did have friends. I guess it was my "thrill of hope" before I realized what bigger hope that line really mean.
Away in a Manger
These memories are in about as random an order as the songs that come on the radio. Will was born in December eight years ago. Once he came along, I felt like I should have some lullabies to sing to my new baby, but those weren't listed in all the preparing-for-baby books I read, so I was feeling a bit ignorant in that area. I knew
Rock-a-bye Baby, but the whole thing about the cradle crashing from the tree disturbed me a bit. Luckily, even back then, there were plenty of Christmas songs on the radio, so I was able to sing along with those. Once I realized that one of the verses to
Away in a Manger was so sweet for a babe, I continued to sing it as Will's lullaby.
Eight years later, and I still sing it almost every night year-round to all four of my kids. Hearing the whole song reminds me of the cold Kansas Christmas with a new little baby, which was also the first time I felt like I understood a little about what Mary was going through with a newborn baby boy to love. Here is the everyday lullaby I sing to and pray with my little ones, "Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask You to stay close by me forever, and love me I pray. Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with You there."
Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies
This is one of the few without lyrics that work as a time-machine for me, and I happened to find a picture from about the same time in my life that the memories happen, but all the real photos are in my parents' albums. When I was in third grade, I was laying on the lower bed of my bunk beds the day after Christmas and a small piece of wood from the top bed fell in my eye. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but it itched, I rubbed it, and the splinter scratched my cornea. Mom took me to the doctor and he put medicine in it and patched it (like a pirate, but with white gauze and tape.) The next day, the 27th, I was getting one of my Christmas gifts from my parents: my long straight hair was getting cut and permed (think: dirty blond orphan Annie). On the 28th, my Girl Scout troop went to see The Nutcracker ballet at Heinze Hall in Pittsburgh... I had a new short curly hair-do, and I only saw half the Nutcracker -- the right half ;) The cheerful Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies reminds me of my hair and eye adventures during the Christmas break of third-grade.
Up On the Rooftop
"Ho, ho, ho! Who wouldn’t go? Ho, ho, ho! Who wouldn’t go? Up on the rooftop Click, click, click. Down thru the chimney with Good Saint Nick." I got my own room when I was about four years old, and this song takes me back to before that. When we lived in Pittsburgh, and I was younger than four, I shared a room with my brother. On Christmas Eve, after I was tucked into bed, I would stand on my bed and look out my second-story window, up the dark hill to the blue neon lights of Stadtlander Pharmacy. Beyond that, all I could see was starlight and sometimes the moon, and that's where I just
knew I would see Santa's reindeer soaring with his sleigh. I never did see it, though. And I never heard him on our rooftop, but that would have confused me anyway, since I believed if he was unlucky enough to try the chimney, he would definitely get stuck in the big silver fire-breathing-dragon-furnace.
It was a cold Christmas Eve in 1981 (in Pittsburgh, all Christmas Eves were cold) and Santa, yes THE Santa Claus, came to our backdoor and ... knocked!! I remember thinking it odd that anyone would come to the backdoor at nighttime, and when I saw the white beard and red coat, I remember stopping in surprise. My parents let him in, and he actually knew my name. He sat in the wooden rocker in our living room with the army-green carpet, and he lowered his sack from his shoulder to the floor. My brother and I were amazed! I remember like it was yesterday, even though it was 30 years ago, that he pulled a wooden stool out for Jason, then one for me. Jason also got a football and I got a jump-rope with wooden handles. It was a long, long time before I quit believing in Santa because I knew I had actually seen him on Christmas Eve when I was four-years old. Though I almost suspected it was one of two neighbors, this picture proved it was not. Even when I was old enough to be able to recognize those men in disguise, I always knew this Santa was not either of those men, so I assumed it must have been the real Santa.
Silver Bells
Sometime when I was a kid, I have no idea when, my parents took us Christmas shopping on a street full of small stores all in a row. I remember loving that shopping place. I want to say it might have been in Oakmont, a community near Pittsburgh, but when I search for photos online, I'm not finding any that look like what I picture. Maybe I've imagined it all these years, but the song puts a particular place in my mind. I remember noticing how beautiful the town was, with strings of Christmas lights spiraling up all the old-fashioned lamp posts and with fragrant evergreen wreaths hanging from the street signs. I remember piles of snow on the edges of the streets and sidewalks and how I would sometimes climb the small knolls when we were walking between shops. I remember a maroon awning with gold fringe over a shop that sold beautiful clocks. I remember a small bookstore and the warmth of the store and a sweet cookie aroma when we walked in. I do not remember if we actually bought any gifts on that excursion, but I can picture the old-fashioned Main Street with busy sidewalks dressed for Christmas. I hear the snow crunch and can feel the crisp air in my lungs. I see strangers smiling and wishing each other "Merry Christmas," while the Salvation Army Santa rang his little bell and passed out candy canes to children who dropped quarters in the can. Whether it is a real memory or just a compilation of Christmas-card pictures, paintings, and real-life moments, I can't be sure, but THIS is what I remember when I hear "City sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style. In the air there's a feeling of Christmas. Children laughing, people passing meeting smile after smile. And on every street corner you hear silver bells...."
The last month has been full of these kinds of memories. When I hear What Child is This? I remember singing it in the small Methodist church with the children's choir. I remember our neighbor, Lois Himler, was the choir director and she picked me up, took me to choir practice, and brought me home every Wednesday night that I was in the kids choir at church. When I hear Amy Grant softly sing I Need a Silent Night, it reminds me of the first time I heard it just a year ago, when I was driving home in the rain after a long, hectic day with the kids, followed by a fun night with my book club buddies. It soon became a favorite for me because it reminded me that it wasn't so much that I needed a break from my kids, but that I needed Jesus to be my rest. Some of the stories I've shared with the kids. Now when they hear
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, they remind me that this was a song played at our wedding and that it is one of Gramma's favorites. When they hear
Little Drummer Boy, they announce that Granddad's favorite song is playing and I can picture Dad sitting on the piano bench, gazing blankly out the window to his left, while his right hand picked out the notes to the Little Drummer Boy. When I hear
Joy to the World, I can picture mom playing the piano wearing a red shirt and a white vest. When I hear
Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, I remember singing it with my seventh-grade choir, the first time I realized what all the words were and how gory the song really was.
Jingle Bells reminds me of my first-grade teacher, Miss O'Toole, and of a little deaf girl in our class named Corrina. I remember her shaking some bells with the rest of us while we sang it with our class.
There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays reminds me of "helping" mom bake pumpkin bread for all the neighbors, and of decorating Christmas sugar cookies. When I hear
Frosty the Snowman, I recall watching it on TV as a child, and I am thrilled to be able to watch the same animated show with my kids.
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause reminds me of a kissing ball ornament hung in my childhood house. This year, I asked Mom if I could have that same mistletoe ball since she didn't hang it anymore. I am so happy to have it even though I need to repair it. It represents so many of my childhood Christmases that I've mentioned.
White Christmas reminds me of Christmastime in Lubbock or visiting from college at my parents' house in Waco, when Mom and I would sip tea or cocoa, cover up with afghans and spend hours watching black-and-white classic movies.
