I love Christmas. Decorating the house. The Christmas tree. Sending Christmas cards. Baking Christmas cookies and making the holiday dinner. Even buying gifts, although I always aim to be done by Thanksgiving.
All of that is pretty normal, more or less.
Here’s the twisted part, at least if you ask my mother. Call it my dirty little Christmas secret. Some people like romance novels. Others enjoy reality tv. I like Christmas music. A lot.
So much so that I even buy it. Lots of it. Classical. Jazz. Pop. Oldies. This year’s addition is an album by the a cappella group Straight No Chaser. You may have seen their version of the 12 Days of Christmas on YouTube:
By the way, even though she doesn’t understand my obsession with Christmas music, my mom is a good sport about it. She’s the one who sent me the YouTube link in the first place.
She’s also part of some of my best Christmas memories, including the ones evoked by the ornaments featured at the top of this post. We made these more than 20 years ago. Every weekend, we would spend one day at my grandparents’ house. In the spring and summer we’d help with the gardening, in the fall we’d rake and in November and December, we did Christmas things.
I can still see my grandfather, who died in 1989, sitting at the table watching us make the ornaments. He got tremendous amusement from the fact that I managed to make one for every six or so my mom made. Mine had to be perfect, you see. [As I’ve gotten older, and especially since I had Douglas eight years ago, I have somewhat relaxed my attitude toward perfection. A little.]
Back to the story. I think he got as much pleasure from watching us joke and laugh as we made the ornaments as he did from any of the more formal holiday hoopla. It’s been nearly 20 years, and every year when I place those ornaments on the tree, I miss him all over again.
And remember how lucky I am that he was my grandfather.
My best wishes to all of you for a safe and happy holiday and a wonder-filled new year. I’ve created a Jacquie Lawson holiday card just for you, which can be viewed at this link.
I’ll leave you with the lyrics to one of my all-time favorite holiday songs, May Every Day Be Christmas by Louis Jordan.
“May every day be Christmas
And every day be blessed
Let the end of every day be filled with happiness
And may the Lord be good to you with every rising sun
All through the day have a smile for everyone
At night time comes a longing to be with ones you love
To sit around the fireside and dream of stars above
So may God bless you and keep you, come what may
Then every day will be a happy day
May good times come to you every day”
SS says
Here are some beautiful, animated ecards for Christmas.
http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-ecards
NOTE FROM SUSAN: While I would normally delete a blatantly commercial comment such as this, I am going to leave it up because some of my readers might be interested.
Stacey says
Ha! You are not alone in your love of Xmas music. Mine starts the day after Thanksgiving, and I play it sometimes through January, or until my hubby says “please PLEASE stop playing that stuff.” LOL!
Wonderful memories, thanks for sharing.