'Tis the season, and once again the music that makes Christmas so special is everywhere. In fact, in some places out on the FM dial, it was playing before our jack-o-lanterns started to mold! Even for me, that's a tad early.
Late this afternoon I had some work to do on the computer. Daughter was on the sofa next to me snoozing after a day of Christmas shopping and I just felt like I could use a little of that great music in the background. Fortunately, I have my wonderful little ipod loaded with lots of various artists and their interpretation of the holiday sound. So, I strapped on the headphones to enjoy and not bother another soul.
One of my most favorite Christmas albums of all time is a recording of a dozen of the classics by the Hollywood Bowl Symphony orchestra. The original recording was done in 1964. I first heard it in 1966 on an LP that my mom owned. I think she still has it. I was eight years old, absolutely geeked about Christmas, and played that album endlessly on her walnut Magnavox console stereo.
Back then, when everyone else in the house would tire of my endless playing of it, I would plug in the Christmas lights on the tree, put the album on softly, and sit down, hunched against one end of the console and put my ear close to the big speakers behind the fabric grille.
What struck me tonight was how, 45 years later, I can sit and listen to that exact same recording, lost in that wonderful music and the spirit of the holiday that it brings, and do it on a little device that contains about 1500 other songs and weighs less than one vacuum-tube from that old Magnavox!
This is Christmas tradition defined: A thing, a place, or a memory that transcends decades of progress and change, to remain forever in our hearts.
2 comments:
And also, in our opinion, it is the older 'classics' which are the only ones worth the time.
Possibly they are the only 'classics'.
Or perhaps we are just getting...older.
We at 'The Study' hope that the residents of 'The Mole Hole' and the residents of 'The Study' can get together over the Holidays to talk of this and that and enjoy a carol or two.....and a spiritual libation or two....
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