I emerge, bleary-eyed and blinking, from the dank, dark underground of paper grading and final exams, to announce: Tell us what you love most about this time of year!
I’m back!
5. The decorations…Michael Kelly (R.I.P.) wrote a marvelous essay once called “Not a White-Lights Person” (or something to that effect), about how he was all about the bright & colorful & garish in Christmas decor. ITA! I unearthed a plastic light-up Santa, circa 1967, from an antique mall a few years ago, and it enjoys pride of place in my front hall. Plus I have three small fake trees decorated as follows: the Santa tree, the snowman tree, and the angel tree. Not to mention the regular tree with every other ornament on it. And bowls and jars of ornament balls scattered on shelves, and holiday doodads on every other surface. I am not about Christmas minimalism.
4. Stockings! these were always the first things we opened the Morning Of…we were allowed to root through those while Mom & Dad slept another twenty minutes. Plus now I love buying things for other people’s. Some years I even do “theme stockings”. Because I am a freak.
3. Traditional music: And I know allllll the words. I used to while away the time during sermons reading that part of the Methodist hymnal. Hard to pick a fave: if forced, I’d say, secular-wise, “Let it Snow”; flip-side, “We Three Kings” & “O Holy Night”. I also treasure a few pop newbies, like “Step Into Christmas” (Elton John), “Wonderful Christmas Time” (McCartney & Wings), “Last Christmas” (George Michael), and even “So This is Christmas (War is Over)” by John & Yoko.
2. “A Soulful Celebration”: This is Handel like you’ve never heard it, and their version of the “Hallelujah Chorus” is a joyful religious experience.
1. Alastair Sim & 1951′s Scrooge (as it was first titled): Hard to understand why TCM insists on showing the ’38 one. It’s one of the few perfect films ever made, and Sim’s transformation is moving and unforgettable.
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Alistair Sim in Scrooge
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Christmas Eve Liturgy
Bing Crosby
Christos Razhdajetsja! Slavite Jeho!
Welcome back,Fr. Ron…when is Christmas for your Church?
Thanks, Scott! We’ve been “new calendar” since the late ’40s, so we’ll be celebrating this Thursday and Friday. Very much looking forward to the services!
1. “Joy to the World” played on an old, pipe organ at Midnight Mass.
2. Advent – reconciliation, preparation and joyful anticipation. Christmas is so much more than pulling out the tree right after Thanksgiving…better to build slowly so we’re not ready to put away the holly and wreaths on December 26th.
3. Christmas movies – from the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas in Connecticut, Meet John Doe to 3 Godfathers. Great films that add so much.
4. Der Bingle – Bing Crosby’s “Merry Christmas” is a Christmas must in our home. It’s not Christmas until Bing sings.
5. Having precious time to spend with family I don’t see except at this time of year.
Hee haw and Merry Christmas!
1. The STORY of course… the beginning of the pivotal period of human history and the reason I know this life is worth living.
2. The music… pretty much anything besides “Feliz Navidad” and Mannheim Steamroller. I love Rush Limbaugh, but his pimping of Mannheim Steamroller is unfathomable.
3. my kids… I love the excitement and expectation whether it’s for presents, seeing Grandma or Nana, waiting for the cookies to finish baking or to be read the Christmas story and Twas the Night Before…, etc. It mirrors the watchful waiting of the Nativity.
4. Christmas parties… parties with my colleagues, friends, students, at Church, etc… food friends and stories.
5. Christmas at my Granny and Papa’s house when I was a kid.
Floyd, I’m with you on Mannheim Steamroller. I suspect from years of listening to Rush that his love of the group comes from hearing it at a specific time and place. The music evokes memories of his father’s passing and the times when his career was taking off. Actually, he’s said those very things through the years when he plays the music.
As for me, I hate it! It sounds dated and cheesy. So considering I give forbearance for Rush on that issue.
I’m enjoying some really beautiful choral arrangements this year I’ve found of the really good stuff. “O Holy Night” and “Stille Nacht” and of course, Handel’s “Messiah”. My husband is tired of hearing “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence”. Here’s a great a cappella arrangement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C0I3YgMHiI
Well, Floyd, I have to say that I still love Mannheim Steamroller’s Christmas music, but I’ve noted how many people don’t; it’s become like the legendary fruit cake, but I love fruit cake as well!
Oddly, I think it’s the lights that evoke Christmas most for me. I have a vivid memory–one of my earliest–of my father bringing me downstairs to see the first Christmas tree I remember, long, long ago, around the time of William the Conqueror.
Second, the music. I’m a sucker for Christmas carols (except for the Little Drummer Boy and Do You Hear What I Hear, and Santa Baby. And probably some others, generally of the cutesy or perverse type. But mostly I love Christmas music, secular and sacred both). The only thing that spoils Christmas carols for me is the up-to-date churches that emasculate the lyrics–”Born to raise each child of earth,” or “Good Christians, All Rejoice.” If I have to participate in such a service, I sing the old words. And. I. Know. Them. All. By. Heart.
Finding ways of making the Christmas story as real as I can for my kids. We’ve been attending a live nativity sort of thing, more involved and very cool, for the last few years. We do an Advent wreath, most of my decoration are Nativity scenes. I bought some Frankincense oil for us to smell. They have to know the whole thing is as real as their own birth stories, and I want them to know it as well. We also read it Christmas morning.
Cookies and caroling with the neighbors. We bake sugar cookies with our across the street neighbors. Picture 12 kids from 16 down, rolling, pressing, icing, and sprinkling about 150 cookies. The kitchen is a disaster, there is icing and flour every where, and I have a huge headache and am planning on drinking heavily as soon as it’s over. It ain’t Hallmark but it’s tradition and the kids love it. Then we deliver them to all the other neighbors with carols sung by candlelight.
My uncle. All my Christmas traditions come from him. He was a safe place of faith and love in my otherwise tumultuous childhood. He’s not doing so well this year and the world will be a little less safe and worse off when he goes Home.
Watching Steel Magnolias, drinking the better part of a bottle of wine and wrapping all the gifts the day before. In a house where there is always a toddler, you don’t put wrapped gifts under the tree until the last possible moment.
The Christmas Tree Lighting on the Square and Brave Combo concert. I LOVE my town.
Driving around making fun of other people’s Christmas lights. Yeah I know that’s more than 5, but it’s another tradition dr zoon and I enjoy. It’s how we spend our date nights in December.
5. I travel a lot and almost always, during this time of year there will be a point when I’m stuck in an airport due to a weather condition, and there are thousands of others in the same predicament; all of us anxious to get home to attend a holiday gathering, or see family, or finish gift shopping… I’ll be stuck in an airport bar and, invariably, it becomes an impromptu Holiday party. Everyone is a little stressed, we’re all very tired, none of us is home. I think part of why I enjoy this so much is it’s almost an annual tradition for me, but it’s completely random. I’m fairly confident it will happen at some point between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I don’t know when, or where, and I know I’ll know no one at the party, but it will be a great time.
4. Shopping for the gift for my kids. I enjoy shopping for Mrs. Firefly, but I seem unable to hit it out of the park with her, giftwise. She’s much better at finding some perfect, quirky thing that’s just right for me, than I am at reciprocating, but I do seem to have a knack for getting something special for my children. Mrs. Firefly does all the shopping, and coordinates with the relatives to make sure the kids get what’s on their lists, but every year I go off on my own, nobody even knows I’m doing it, and I spend a few hours thinking about my kids, looking in shops, and trying to find an ideal gift for them, that they don’t know about. Something my kids will love, but that they have no idea it exists. I wrap the gifts and they appear under the tree. They are addressed as from Mrs. Firefly and me, but even she doesn’t know what’s in them, or when they’ll show up. The kids think they are from both of us, their parents, as it should be, but I get tremendous personal benefit from taking a few hours each year to think about my kids, their interests, their ages, and what they will appreciate.
3. Playing Carols on the piano. Christmas carols are wonderful, and most are so simple even I can hammer them out semi-convincingly. I can’t wait until late November when I can pull out the book of Carols and start playing them. Each year I add a few more arpeggios and chord changes to the standards. They’re great songs and I love the evolution of trying to improve on my ability to play them each year. The tree is usually very close to the piano, and when the kids are in bed I’ll often pour myself a beer and set it on a coaster right on the piano, and play in the shadow of the tree lights.
2. Watching my wife. There is so much for a mom to do at this time of year, and it’s easy for women to get swamped by it all. Mrs. Firefly juggles it all beautifully and looks beautiful doing it.
1. Christmas Eve! There’s so much about the night that I love, but the most fun is probably the end of the night, when the party is over, and Mrs. Firefly and I have cleaned up the dishes and put everything away and then she brings out the gifts for the kids. I always forget everything she’s gotten for them, so it’s fun for me to see it all together, and realize how cool the next morning will be for them, and there is always something elaborate I have to assemble. She pours me a beer and I get my tools out and start to work. For a brief time it’s like we’re Mr. and Mrs. Claus. I also love going to midnight mass. Based on our children’s ages we can’t always attend, but there is something magical about Christmas Eve and it’s beautiful when we can couple that with Mass. I was raised with Polish traditions and Christmas Eve is when it all happens for Polacks. That’s the night. Something about midnight, 1am, 2am on Christmas Eve always helps me connect with Joseph and Mary, and what they were going through.
you made me all teary Rufus. I hope it’s a lovely time for you and your wonderful family.
Carol of the Bells and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Then I know it’s Christmas.
Oh yeah, and Burl Ives.
My favorite thing is the way people used to say Merry Christmas. Every time someone says “happy holidays,” I have to fight the urge to reply, “what holiday would that be?”
Johnny Mathis, Merry Christmas album.
Snow and Christmas Lights. A Cardinal sitting in the snow on a feeder.
All the specials from Charlie Brown to Rudolph. The movies and der Bingle.
Helping my Dad who was a bigger kid than me during Christmas. I will
add more later.
Wankette, amen on the colored lights! I didn’t mention in my recollection of my first Christmas memory, that that Christmas tree with its colored lights was my first experience of beauty in my life, and I kind of imprinted on it.
In churches I’ve attended, there’s a tradition of having what they call “Chrismon Trees,” trees decorated with white lights and white-and-gold (usually styrofoam) decorations in the shape of Christian symbols.
I hate Chrismon trees. They’re a symptom of what I consider a disease in organized Christianity, that we take beautiful and exciting things, and make them less beautiful and more dull. It misses the whole point of the exercise.
5. Snow – There’s nothing like a white Christmas and watching the snow swirl outside the window on Christmas Eve, lit up by the streetlights. I’d just turn the TV and the lights off (except the ones on the tree), the Christmas carols on, and sip myself into a long winter’s nap. The next day when the family would come over, we’d just stick the beer outside on the deck in the snow to keep them nice and frosty.
4. Classic Christmas movies and specials. In the past few years, I’ve also been listening to the old time radio Christmas shows online. The Christmas episodes of The Great Guildersleeve, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Phil Harris and Alice Faye, Dragnet (The Big Little Jesus), and you can’t do better than listening to Lionel Barrymore’s Scrooge.
3. Classic Christmas albums by the singers who put them on the map …. on vinyl. I’ve tracked down all the classic albums on vinyl like Nat King Cole, Bing, Sinatra, Dino, Jackie Gleason, Como, Mathis, Williams, Bennett, Rawls, etc. If the music doesn’t have the hiss of the needle it’s not worth listening to.
2. Ditto on the decorations. I’ve got a 60s aluminum tree and color wheel that changes the color of the whole room as it spins. Also, it’s great to see the favorite decorations I’ve collected over the years.
1. Christmas Eve (and Day) dinner with family. My family/friends get together on the Eve and my father and I either make Chinese food from scratch, or do an Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes. I usually make a few different kinds of biscotti, pizzelles, peppermint bark, and a tiramisu for Christmas Day.
OK to add to my Christmas Favs. I am a Christmas person. My Dad was a Christmas person. Nelson’s Flag and Display in La Crosse Wisconsin was a stop for us to buy our favorite Knee Hugger Elves (Called pixies but thats such a femmy name we called em knee huggers), new cool gold lights for our big tree and knew ornaments. Also some very special things for gifts for my silly siblings. God I loved that store. Imagine walking up to a place in the dark with snow falling and the yard full of fresh cut trees…it was Narnia on roids. It smelled so good.
Like I said Johnny Mathis playing on the sound system. Or John Denver and the Muppets. Jesse Norman, Kiri te Kanawa, Celtic Woman, Medival Baebes, The Tenors, Transsiberian Orchestra, Celine Deon…even yes Barbara Streisands old Christmas Album. Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Andy Williams….so many…even Frank Sinatra.
My German Twig tree. THis is a very special tree because its unique. If nyou see it with out its decorations you’d say what? But it resembles trees that are part of the cultural yuletide tradition of Germany and Austria. I decorate it with colored lights, and this year added white and blue LED snow flake lights and LED poinsettas. The tree is covered with ice cylces I clip with the ends of the branchs and then I put my Wild LIfe Ornaments. I have two bull Elk, a Bull Moose, several White Tailed Bucks, A Buffalo Bull, a Caribou, squirrels, racoons, a beaver, a black bear, a flock of black capped Chickadees, a flock of tufted Titmice, several red Cardinals, a pair of Canvasback Ducks, a pair of Blue Wing Teal, 4 Canada Geese, a mallard, three Hallmark Snowmen, an Arctic Fox and a Red Fox. Its really lovely in the window at night. I need a timber wolf or two, a cougar, a Grizzly and a Polar Bear. I’d like to find all four examples of North American wild sheep and a Mountain Goat. This tree is really amazing.
And then there is the big tree where all of the other heirloom ornaments are. I lost a box or two of Christmas Ornaments in my move from DC to Hawaii and the only ornaments I have from my childhood are two little bells, a red one and a blue one that had belonged to my Mom and Dad since the late 40′s. My White House Christmas ornaments are on the tree as well as ornaments I have collected from Hawaii, Carlisle PA, Florida and here. I have several Old World Ornaments on this tree, Santas and a Lion laying down with a Lamb. There are angels. I collect Santas so there are Father Christmas’ and Regular Santas. I have a Saint Nicholas and some cool other retro ornaments I got at antique stores.
I have a Hallmark deocration called Santa’s Midnight Ride. Its S. Claus in his sleigh and all 8 reindeer. Its awesome. Several cool Yankee Candle Company Decorations and my Fontanini Nativity Scene. I have a display of Hallmark Father Christmas’ upstairs and four Christmas Story figurines, two Celebration Barbies. And this wonderful music box from long before I was born, its two angels and a baby in a manger and the song this music box plays Silent Night. I loved it. I do still love it.
I love Christmas. If you are on my facebook page I have been posting videos of Christmas Carols and pieces of films. To me Christmas is the greatest time of year. Its the time when things just seem to make sense. I sound like a kid but I have never lost that feeling. Yeah I still hear the bell ring.
I forgot to add my black labrador Old World Ornament that is a remembrance of my dog Champion and the several Golden Retriever Ornaments..one of which is an Old World Ornament. I also have a German shepherd or two to remind me of the dog we had before B, Gunnar.
The Scottish mathematics professor – Alistair Sim’s portrayal of Scrooge. The memory (sixty/seventy years ago) of my father reading “A Christmas Carol.” That was our bed time story read over the week prior to Christmas Eve, and perfectly timed