"How can you and Dad stand listening to Christmas music day after day?" my son asked recently. "They're the same songs over and over again." My answer was simply, "because I love to hear them." He's right, of course. Christmas music is repetitive and predictable and there lie the secrets to their enjoyment. The are the same; unaltered and constant and I look forward to hearing them all over again at the end of each year. They are so familiar to me that listening and singing along to them gives me great comfort and a source of continuity of Christmases past and present.
The key element to appreciating carols and holiday songs is knowing the words. I have been part of choral groups on and off ever since the fourth grade. I've sung in many Christmas concerts and practiced hundreds of carols again and again. They are indelibly ingrained in my cerebral folds. My son has never been in any singing group. We do not attend church where seasonal hymns are sung at Christmas. He never learned any carols or holiday songs at school either. God forbid he should learn a Christmas song there! How quickly times change; school was where I learned all my Christmas music.
As my mother did before me, I start playing Christmas music in our house on December 1st. I suppose my son has been listening to these songs for so long that he hears them but doesn't really listen to them and probably tunes them out for the most part. For the first 42 years of my life, my family gathered around the piano to sing songs before or after dinner (sometimes both) on Christmas Day. My mother sat herself down in front of our old upright and played one song after another. This wonderful, much looked forward to custom died ten years ago when she did. No one else in the family plays and we haven't sung together since. My son was only seven then and just beginning to be part of this joyous, good-natured raising of voices. This was one of my favorite parts of Christmas and I've missed it a great deal.
Christmas is a time to envelope and cherish one's family. It's a time for special meals, fancy desserts and gifts from the heart; an opportunity to let everyone in the family know how much they are loved. I have always loved Christmas and married a man whose enjoyment of the season transcends mine. I don't believe Christmas is just for children. I enjoy gift giving and receiving as much now as I ever did as a child. Do presents, Christmas trees, glitterydecorations and perhaps eating and drinking a bit more than usual have anything to do with the birth of Jesus? No, they don't but all these things are very much parts of a whole of what is still important to me to continue to experience and celebrate the Christmases I knew and loved as a child. I realize, of course, one has to be blessed with happy memories of past Christmases to feel this way and I have been. The holiday is more of a familial experience for me than a religous one. Is that so terrible? I think not.
Welcome Christmas! Bring your cheer!
Cheer to all who's far and near!
Christmas Day is in our grasp!
So long as we have hands to clasp!
Christmas Day will always be!
Just as long as we have we!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I send you my wishes for a happy and healthy new year.
1 comment:
Hi, Meredith!
Well....I didn't have the best actual CHRISTMAS, but the season itself has been decent. Next year, Hawaii on Christmas Eve! Lisa :-]
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