Gloria Ferris

Music conjures up great memories for me at all times of the year, but Christmas and music are tangled together just like a string of twinkling lights.  George’s link  for Chris Butler about favorite Christmas music got me thinking about some of my favorite Christmas music.  Actually, the list is almost endless. One carol begets another carol, and then, there are the old standards that remind me very fondly of my mother and father, and then there is…snow, snow, think of all of the songs that owe their existence to the word “snow”. 

I am sure you are getting the drift at just how difficult honing down a Christmas list of favorite music was for me.  I finally chose these six as my “favorites”.  Of course, if I was asked tomorrow the list might shift and change but these songs will still be a part of any Christmas memory of music.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas.  This song signifies the beginning of the Christmas season for me.  When I was little, my dad would begin our Christmas season by bursting into song.  This song could have been considered his signature song.  Now, that he is gone I use the first time I hear it on the radio as the beginning to my Christmas season.

Up On The Housetop.  My aunts years ago began performing this song with appropriate hand motions for all of the little kids in our family.  After a certain age, the kids become part of the performers. Strangely enough, All of the kids are the audience, but the performing cast is all female. Hmmm!

O Holy Night!  My mother loved to play Christmas Carols on the piano.  She loved to play all kinds of carols and songs, but this one was one of her favorites.  When I hear this song, it reminds me of family get togethers when  my mother played and we sang.

The Christmas Song.  Hearing the velvet voice of Nat King Cole giving the perfect description of an idyllic Christmas reminds me that aspiring to perfection is an admirable goal but that each and every Christmas becomes “the best Christmas ever” for varied reasons.

What Child is This?  I have an incredible affinity to traditional caroling fare.  This is probably due to the six years that I spent singing with the other teenagers in my hometown.  The Sunday evening before Christmas we would gather at one of the area churches and start on our trek to sing and bring cookies to the “shut-ins” in our community.  These folk were those of us who could not make it to church to participate in the festivities of the season.  We would take the festivities to them. 

Many of the spouses of these older folks greatly appreciated our efforts and we would be quite full of egg nog, hot chocolate, fruitcake and other goodies by the time we headed back to our cars. One old man sticks in my memory to this day.  He was a World War I veteran gassed in one of the battles in Europe.  He was bedridden for as long as I can remember  My father and other veterans had enclosed their front porch years before with huge windows that let in any available sunshine but more importantly, the view of the world beyond his house. 

During the winter, he moved farther into the house, but on the night that we were expected he insisted on moving back to the porch so that he could watch our approach. One year he greeted us with candles to carry  candles as we strolled down the streets.  He said that the older people who looked forward to our visits would appreciate knowing that we were on our way.

As the years progressed, we saw the detrioration of his health, but he always insisted on ladling the egg nog into our cups. Here was a man bedridden who could barely lift his head at times, but he appreciated our feeble efforts at harmony so much that he would rally each year to show it by sharing a cup of cheer with us.  i wonder if he ever realized that he gave more to us than we could ever give to him.  

Happy Christmas (War is Over)  And to someone who came of age in the seventies, this song by John Lennon wraps it up quite approriately.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Cleveland, developing community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.