Christmas Music

I can’t find our Christmas CDs.  I usually keep them out all year, but last year I inadvertently packed them away with all the other decorations and this year I did not get out my plethora of boxes because half our house is being occupied by friends and all their stuff, and there just isn’t room for my abundance of holiday decor, so the CDs are somewhere in the attic in a box that probably will not be retrieved for another year.   Lord, help me.

One of the highlights of the month of December for our entire family is listening to Christmas music.  There is not another holiday or event all year long that invokes musical interludes like the Christmas season, so it is certainly something we cannot miss.  We each have our favorite CDs, which get played repeatedly until someone else in the house puts a stop to it and switches it with their favorite.

When I was a kid I listened incessantly to my mom’s favorites - the likes of Bing Crosby, Andy Williams and Elvis Presley – each with their own special 33rpm Christmas albums that were stacked up on the turntable and played throughout the month.  I don’t ever remember my mom dancing at any other time of the year, but when Elvis’ Blue Christmas song came blasting out of those stereo speakers, she’d start to dance and grab whatever kid was near to twirl them around the living room and join her in that little holiday thrill. Music does that to a person.  I must admit, Elvis’ Blue Christmas is one of my favorites, too, but listening to Clay Aiken singing Mary Did You Know brings me to tears each and every time I hear it, so it’s a close second.  Both songs are good ones in their own unique ways.

When Kaleb was a preschooler he used to love the song, Feliz Navidad. He had a little guitar he’d strum and run around the house singing “Feliz Na-bi-da” over and over again.  He kinda sounded like Elvis when he was doing it and I’m ever so thankful I captured those moments on video, but like the Christmas CDs, who knows where that is.

Currently, Kaleb loves a group called “Go Fish” and his all time favorite song of theirs is Christmas with a Capital C.  That song gets us both up dancing in the living room, singing at the top of our lungs right along with them.  It’s good to have such joy in the house.

I recently bought a retro Andy Williams Christmas CD to add to my now missing holiday collection. That’s all that’s going to be playing in our house this year unless I succumb and finally try to figure out how to download music off the Internet.   I usually resist technological advances but if they somehow figure out how to project holographic Christmas decorations so I don’t have to unpack any more