Christmas Presents To Sooth Your Soul

                                                                                                  

Christmas is only two days away.  The shopping and wrapping is finished, baking done, and house decorated and cleaned.  It is time to nourish your weary body and enjoy a good Christmas story, inspiring DVD, and/or listen to some holiday stories and music.  I’m sure that you have your favorite, the ones you listen to each holiday.  Well, I have mine too and I’d like to share some of my favorites with you.  A few of these are old and in cassette format.  If you don’t know what an audio cassette is, you’ve missed out on some lovely entertainment.  You won’t find some of these on ITunes or GOOGLE Play, but they are so worth seeking out.

        In 1937 Glanville and Elizabeth Heisch wrote a Christmas story that remained immensely popular with children for about 25 years, The Cinnamon Bear.  Judy and Jimmy Barton’s adventures begin when they go up to the attic to get the family’s silver star tree topper.  The Crazy Quilt Dragon has stolen the star and the siblings must search through Maybeland with friend Paddy O’Cinnamon to recover the star.  The series, consisting of 26 episodes was later made into a 1950s TV serial.  It was made available in the 80’s in a 6 audio cassette package.  The Cinnamon Bear has always been a favorite story, one that fills me with memories of my childhood Christmases.

Another radio based treasure comes from a 1990s airing of “The Midnight Special” which was a weekly show broadcast on WFMT in Chicago.  One special Christmas piece has stayed with me all these years.  I call it “The Wonderfulest Christmas in the United States.”  If memory serves the story was told to Studs Turkel who passed it on, but it is originally a John Henry Faulks Christmas story of a young, poor Texas boy who tells a stranger of the Christmas he and his family had with their neighbors the Jacksons joining in.  There wasn’t much “Christmas” to go around in their town, but an organization was distributing some special food and treats to poor families.  The boy’s dad heard about it and went to see if it was true.  Sure enough he was able to get wonderful holiday treats for his family.  He asked his neighbor, Sam Jackson, whether or not he, too, had gotten some of the treats, but Sam said that he didn’t think that the bounty was meant for black folks, so he didn’t go into town with expectations.  The rest of the story reveals the joy the boy and the two families had making the ‘wonderfulest’ Christmas together, young boys laughing, mothers cooking and dads making a long table, covered with white sheets, that looked like it “belonged in a cathedral or somethin’”.  It is a simple story simply told about unbounded joy—something mostly lost today in our over-commercialized culture.  I don’t know if this is available anywhere, but seeking it out would be well worth the time.

                                                                                                                               

Of course there are easier programs and music you can find.  I recommend Rick Steve’s European Christmas TV special.  This enjoyable program seeks out current, past, and pre-Christian holiday traditions in places like Norway, England, and other European venues.  Perry Como’s DVD Christmas Around the World is a delight, showing excerpts from Como’s Christmas specials in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. Visit with the Boys’ Choir in Vienna, Colonial Williamsburg’s Town Crier, schoolchildren in Mexico, and other places.  The DVD concludes with a visit to Bethlehem.  Perry’s soothing voice and calm, pleasant manner make the compilation a special treat for my family’s holiday viewing.

Although audio cassettes are long gone from store shelves—for that matter store shelves are in short supply too—I have squirreled away a few favorites, having the equipment at hand on which to play the cassettes.  The Christmas titles include Carols from Many Lands by The Choir of Ely Cathedral, directed by Paul Trepte with organist David Price. It was purchased from Past Times an English Company that may have gone the way of store shelves.  The company used to publish a fabulous catalog and many hours were wistfully spent going through its pages.  My favorite seasonal cassette is not necessarily for the Holiday Season, but it is certainly inspirational.  In a 1986 Angel Records (Seraphim, Capitol Records, Inc.) Daniel Barenboim conducts The New Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus in the finest performance of Bach’s Magnificat that I have ever heard. The reverse side isn’t bad either:  Bruckner’s Te Deum. 

            Some of my CD favorites include the more popular titles like The Glenn Miller Orchestra, In the Christmas Mood, Michael Bublé’s Christmas, a 2011 Reprise title, and a 1999 recording by The Irish Tenors, Home for Christmas.  In addition, we often listen to hubby’s favorite, The Very Best of Bing Crosby Christmas, 1999 MCA Records. Hubby is a sucker for Der Bingle.  We watch the White Christmas DVD so much that I have two copies.

Some less well known groups round out my favorite CD Christmas list.  Altramar Medieval Music Ensemble is an Indiana University group are a delight to listen to.  The ensemble specializes in “sharing historical repertory in the context of human experience…evoking the vibrant tapestry of medieval culture.”  Each piece is carefully researched, and beautifully performed on period instruments.  I have several Altramar CDs and they are wonderful.  Their two volumes of Iberian Gardens is outstanding, but for Christmas I love Nova Stella: A Medieval Italian Christmas, 1996 Dorian Discovery, Dorian Group, Ltd. 

Ensemble Galilei with or without Maggie Sansone is a favorite of mine.  Two of their Christmas titles are Ancient Noels with Maggie Sansone.  The CD features “traditional carols, medieval cantigas, and Renaissance dances (that) bring to life images of desert landscapes and stone monasteries where the Christmas spirit was born”  1993, Maggie’s Music.  A Winter’s Night: Christmas in the Great Hall features classic medieval and Renaissance carols from Galicia, Spain, Scotland, and Ireland as well as “original compositions to mark the winter solstice.”  It was produced by Maggie’s Music, 2001 and 2002. The first title features recorders, viola da gamba, Celtic harp, and hammered dulcimer.  The second adds pipes, oboe, tin whistle, flute, and Uilleann Pipes.  Kick back and enjoy!

What will I be listening to this Christmas Eve?  Right now I have Bach’s Magnificat playing on the stereo.  In a while, when hubby is asleep, I will re-enact my customary Christmas Eve activity which is to watch the 1951, black and white, version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol starring Alistar Sim.  Although I have access to the colorized version, it’s got to the the black and white tonight.

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy New Year to all.  

                                                                             

                                                                  

Happy Christmas to all...

No matter where you spend the holidays, best wishes for a Happy New Year.  Here's a Christmas poem that you may not know. Think of those away from home and those left behind on the dark days of this season of light.

Christmas at Sea

By Robert Louis Stevenson

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;

The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;

The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;

And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;

But ‘twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.

We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,

And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;

All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;

All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,

For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;

But every tack we made we bought the North Head close aboard.

So’s we saw the cliff and houses, and the breakers running high,

And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs and white as ocean foam;

The good red fires were burning bright in every ‘longshore home;

The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;

And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;

For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)

This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,

And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,

My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;

And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,

Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,

Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;

And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,

To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.

‘All hands to loose topgallant sails,’ I heard the captain call.

‘By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,’ our first mate, Jackson, cried.

…’It’s the one way or the other, Mr Jackson,” he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,

And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.

As the winter’s day was ending in the entry of the night,

We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,

As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;

But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,

Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

Merry Christmas from Sunny California

Sunny? We've been in LA County nearly a week and are growing web feet. The "Pineapple Express" is providing much needed rain for the California aquifers and reservoirs but it is a pain in the posterior just days before Christmas. The California drivers remain undaunted filling the roads and freeways, albeit with their tops up.

Santa will need a large amphibious craft to deliver his presents around here. I wonder if OSHA requires Mae-wests for each reindeer? Really, it is already difficult for a mid-westerner to cope with temperatures above freezing in December; now you want us to imagine how much snow this rain would be equivalent to? Fortunately I don't have to shovel it!

Right now I am looking for a place to build a holiday ark. Tradition says it should be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high. What the heck is a CUBIT?

Wishing you and yours a sloshing Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Keep warm; keep dry. Gurgle, gurgle...