A mix of sacred and secular on this old album. Well, it’s not really old to me.
I can see and hear it. It’s been more than 50 years since the turntable in our house on Cottage Street, next to the hallway by the secretary. It would be sometime after Thanksgiving when the Christmas records would be brought out and played. One I remember well was the Arthur Godfrey Christmas album. I shall have to find it on line and listen to it at some point this Christmas season. There’s only one song on that album that I remember specifically: Mele Kalikimaka. It’s worth listening to, should you not have heard it before.
We had a few other Christmas records as well, almost all of them secular. Gene Autry singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Here Comes Santa Claus”. Another singing “Santa Claus is Coming To Town”. We were a nominally Christian family, attending church every week, but making sure that didn’t really slop over into our lives between Sundays and other days of obligation.
I vaguely remember new Christmas songs being introduced. I remember when one year (1962) “Do You Hear What I Hear” was a new record. We bought it the next year, the Bing Crosby release, and played it over and over. But it was a new song, and took me a long time to warm up to it.
We listened to sacred Christmas hymns too, but over the radio. And each of the albums we had were probably a mix of secular and sacred songs.
Strange, looking back over a long chain of years, with my life being centered around the sacred for so long, to remember the secular Christmas music so well and so fondly. I wonder, though, if I’ve made a post about this in years past. If so, I’m sorry for the repetition.
For previous Christmas-themed posts, check out this link.
After having had a busy, family-full Thanksgiving week, it’s going to be a quiet Christmas at Blackberry Oaks. Lynda and I will be here alone.
That’s fine with both of us. If yesterday is any indication, we aren’t as able to do a lot as we used to be. I started my day at 6:00 a.m. after a great night’s sleep. I was in The Dungeon by 6:15. I edited the last two chapters of A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1: To Jerusalem. That was the only writing task I had for the day, so I moved on to other things, mainly looking for a lost box of letters. I looked for that yesterday so I could file one stray letter, but I couldn’t find it.
This morning I widened my search in the storeroom, and found it in a place I hadn’t looked yesterday. In that process, I saw four boxes labeled “travel items.” They were boxes of travel brochures we had picked up over the years and, rather than go through them and decide what to keep, what to discard, I just shoved everything into boxes to go through them in the future.
The future came yesterday. I went through the boxes, pulled out everything that wasn’t worth saving, and consolidated the rest into two boxes. That allowed me to do some rearranging of the shelves, including temporary repairs to one shelf. Then it was time for me to make the weekly grocery run. Then back to The Dungeon after lunch, for miscellaneous computer tasks, along with finishing the clean up from the morning’s work in the storeroom.
When I came upstairs around 3:00 p.m., I went straight to the sunroom with my last coffee of the day, hoping to read five to ten pages in The Confessions of Stain Augustine. Instead, I promptly fell asleep. I could read only two pages, as my mind and body conspired against reading retention.
We had planned to make lace cookies in the afternoon, but neither of us had the energy. Hopefully tomorrow.
But the day was productive. One editing pass done through a book finished last week. The clutter reduced a little more. The pantry and fridge adequately stocked. A good afternoon nap for both of us. We’ll get those cookies done tomorrow.
My next blogging day is Monday, Christmas day. I don’t expect many people to be tuning in then, so will say Merry Christmas now. May God bless you on the day we celebrate Jesus’s birth.
I’ve always liked to display blue lights at Christmas, but this red lights display up on the next street is very nice. We had nothing like this in Saudi Arabia—but we found a substitute.
Every year around Christmas, I try to make at least one Christmas post. You can find past ones at this link. Many of those are memories from my childhood. It’s getting to the point where I can’t remember what memories I’ve posted. I know I made at least one duplicate post.
I looked back over posts in December of each year since I started the blog, and couldn’t find any about this. 1981 was our first Christmas in Saudi Arabia. I had arrived there in June, Lynda and the children in September. Sometime around November, one of the Saudi Arabian government ministries sent a notice out to all companies, or perhaps those that were heavy in expatriate employees. The notice said that celebrations of Christmas in the workplace were not allowed. No decorations, no parties. The notice further stated that expatriates better not make any Christmas displays at their residences that can be seen from outside. It promised to be a very blah Christmas for us.
But at that time, two things happened to help cheer things up. In the souks, usually in the shops way towards the back, we found lots of Christmas decorations for sale. Strings of lights, nativity sets, even artificial Christmas trees. One shop off by itself, on a main street but not in the shopping district, was run by the American wife of a Saudi. She had lots of Christmas stuff. We were able to buy everything we needed. We didn’t put lights in our apartment windows, but inside, you knew it was Christmastime.
The other thing that happened, in late November if I remember correctly, King Khalid announced an official visit to our town, Al Khobar, to take place fairly soon, maybe just after the first of the year. The native population immediately set to work preparing for the royal visit. Every company erected archways over city streets and decorated them with much Arabic writing and…lights! They put strings of light all over these arches, wound them around the upright members and across the top. Drive down any main street in Al Khobar and you would pass lit up arches every hundred feet.
[Added 10 Dec 2023] Seems like I never finished writing this before I posted it.
So in early December, with no Christmas lights allowed, local businesses began erecting archways of lights over city streets to welcome the king. It was a golden opportunity for us. We drove the streets of Al Khobar and told the kids to look at all the Christmas lights. No, they didn’t look quite like they would at home, but Charles and Sara were young enough they didn’t know the difference. In fact, they probably don’t remember it.
So there it is, a Christmas memory. Making do in a foreign land where Christmas could not be celebrated openly. I wish I had a photo of that Christmas season. I might, but if so it’s buried deep in a box somewhere in the mess of this building we call a home.
It is very cold today, two years before Christmas day. Perhaps some of the snow will stick around and we’ll have our first white Christmas in over ten years.
Last night was cold, probably -6°F, with the wind chill around -25°F. That’s a little colder than the coldest day here in the average winter season, which is more like 5°F. And it’s only December. Lots of winter days and nights to come.
Despite that, the house felt warm last night. Our new (as of August) heat pump kept cranking. Once I turned the heat down to 65° for nighttime, it kept the temperature there without having to resort to emergency heat. When I got up this morning just before 7 a.m., I walked around the house a little before dressing for the day and felt warm.
Our Christmas cacti are all blooming, both upstairs and down. They know the season even without us doing much with them except occasional watering.
Then again, for some reason I was hot last night. It’s -6° out and I’m hot. I got up and sat in my reading chair with a light blanket over me until I cooled down a little, then went back to bed. Now, down in The Dungeon, where I keep the basement thermostat cooler than upstairs, I feel just a little chilly, as I like it. I can just see a little of outside through the blinds, where the one vertical slat is missing. Tree branches are not swaying, so it appears the wind has tapered off. I see snow on the ground on the far side of the hollow from the 2 inches we got yesterday. And, just off to the right, I see the bright horizon where the sun is about to break over. We haven’t seen much of the sun for three days or so.
The tree may not be fully decorated, but at least the Christmas village is up. But only because after last Christmas we left it up, toys added by the grandkids and all.
Upstairs, our artificial Christmas tree is up and the lights are on. Today, Lynda and I will work together to add the ornaments, then clean up the boxes and storage bin. Might even vacuum, though that is more likely a tomorrow task. I wouldn’t even have put it up except for the family coming in a couple of days after Christmas.
In all of this, I’ve been searching for a metaphor about Christmas and life and maybe writing, but no metaphor comes to me. Alas, just as poetry no longer comes to me. Maybe that’s because I’ve been working mainly on prose for the last 18 years. Or maybe it’s because I wasn’t much of a poet to begin with.
A metaphor of the Christmas season, a metaphor of the start of winter, a metaphor about writing. Seems like something should come to me.
Well, I will end this, my last post before Christmas. Be safe everyone. Remember Jesus on this celebration of his birth. And as Tiny Tim said, “God bless us, everyone.”
I don’t think this was a Christmas photo of Dad and his four grandkids, but it’s a good one.
Most of the Christmas memories I’ve posted had to do with my childhood years and how the family I grew up in celebrated Christmas. A day or two ago, I came upon another memory, but from the time when our children were young.
It was either 1983 or 1984. In ’83, we were newly home from Saudi Arabia. We flew into the US around Dec 15, left our kids with my dad in Cranston, RI, and flew to Asheboro, NC to house hunt in advance of our move there. Lynda flew back to RI Dec 23, and me on Dec 24, if I remember correctly. Christmas that year was celebrated at my brother’s house in Snug Harbor. Our sister, Norma, flew in Christmas morning, surprising all but my brother.
Or, it might have been in 1984. That year we drove from NC to RI for Christmas. I don’t remember if Norma came that year, but the rest of the party and the location was the same. Looking back at the age of the kids, it’s hard to tell which year it was. I believe that beginning in 1985 we stayed in NC for Christmas, so it had to have been 83 or 84.
Our two kids and my brother’s two boys put on a “pageant” for the adults, I think before Christmas supper, which would have been early evening. As I recall, our son Charles was the instigator/organizer of it. The pageant was merely singing Christmas songs, the more common ones that the kids knew. But the highlight was the opening. The children came out, oldest to youngest, and introduced themselves. It went like this.
Edward said, “I’m Mr. Todd.”
Charles said, “I’m Mr. Todd.”
Christopher said, “I’m Mr. Todd.”
Sara said, “I’m Mrs. Todd.”
I remember Dad looking in anticipation as to how Sara would introduce herself, and she said Mrs. instead of Miss, causing great laughter in the adults.
The pageant was good. The kids forgot the words to the songs, or sang the wrong song, or the wrong combination of kids came out from the bedroom—which served as the offstage—to the living room to sing. At one point Charles became frustrated with something that went wrong, or someone who didn’t come on stage when they were supposed to, and Charles blurted out, “We can’t get a d——d thing done!” Again, causing much laughter.
Later in the evening, after dinner, the kids got a little boisterous. I remember my nephews’ older cousin, John, was also there. Dad got tired of the noise, or pretended to get tired of the noise. My dad was a naturally kind-hearted soul who put on a pretense of being gruff most of the time, especially with his four grandkids. The noise got to the point where he said, loudly and gruffly, “All right, you boys. Out to the sun porch for ten minutes of silence!”
The four boys dutifully followed Dad from the kitchen, where they had been cutting up, through the living room to the sunroom. The boys showed no excitement. But there, behind the boys, was little Sara, also going out to the sunroom for “ten minutes of silence.” She had an excited look on her face and was obviously looking forward to what she thought would be a fun time.
As I recall, silence reigned in the house for the next ten minutes, excepting for whatever conversation the other adults were engaged in. The kids obeyed their grandfather (the cousin also obeying).
Anyhow, that’s the memory. Nothing special in a way, but very special in other ways. I tried to get my grandkids to do five minutes of silence out in the sunroom one year. It didn’t work. But Dad got the job done.
The Epiphany was less elaborately decorated than this church, but the decorations seemed sufficient and appropriate.
In a number of past posts in Decembers previous, I shared Christmas memories. I had thought of doing another one of those posts this year, but am not sure what to write about. I’ve covered such things as the way we did our wrapping paper, how we bought and decorated the Christmas tree, the idea of progressive decorating, and the candy house. What else is there to write about?
I’m writing this on Sunday evening. Today we had an excellent service, the guest speaker being Dr. Mark Lindstrom, our former pastor and now district superintendent. Then our adult Sunday school class had its annual Christmas party, something we hadn’t had for a couple of years due to the pandemic.
Church growing up in Cranston, Rhode Island, meant services at the Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal church. Our church was more English Catholic than Protestant. We attended Christmas morning when we were young, but I remember the year we were first old enough to attend Midnight Mass. That would have been when my brother was around 7 or 8 I would guess. I remember it was a normal work night for Dad, so Mom’s parents came from Providence to get us and take us to church.
I remember the church was nicely decorated with garlands, wreathes, and votive candles on the ledge of each stained-glass window down each side of the sanctuary. The decorations were not as lavish as churches put up now, but they seemed appropriate to us. I guess I ought to say to me, as I can no longer ask other family members about it.
The processional was “O Come All Ye Faithful”. That was different than the processional for morning service, which was “Sing, Oh Sing This Blessed Morn”. But that song wouldn’t have been appropriate for a nighttime service.
About 3/4 of the way through the service, we sang a slow version of “Silent Night”. On the second verse, the house lights slowly started to lower. By the third verse they were out completely, and only light was from the candles on the altar and the votive candles. I remember how beautiful it seemed. A few years later, when I was an acolyte at Midnight Mass, I was the one to control the lights, and was quite nervous about doing it right.
When mass was over, many families exchanged presents. I don’t remember us doing that. What I do remember is that Dad was at the back of the church. The Providence Journal let him off early from his shift, and he came straight to the church.
Once we began attending Midnight Mass, Sunday morning became a little different, but that’s a memory for another day.
So humble the way He came to us, but so precious the path that has led for all of us from that manger.
I thought I was done with Christmas posts for this year, but another has come to mind. It’s to do with Christmas songs again, with another favorite of mine. And it ties into our pastor’s sermon yesterday.
The song is “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”. It’s not quite my favorite Christmas sone, but it’s close: in the top five if not the top three. We didn’t sing it in any church service this year until yesterday. The words were written by Charles Wesley in 1739. The music is by Felix Mendelssohn. According to Hymnary.org, it has been published in 1,242 hymnals. It’s a great hymn for a brass-dominated orchestra. Thous it also sounds good with a string quartet. It sounds especially good when sung by the Celtic Women.
Toward the end of his sermon, Pastor Mark focused on the third verse. Whenever the song is sung, you rarely get into it past the second verse. In fact, while I fell in love with the third verse many years ago, I’d long forgotten those wonderful words:
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.
There, in language now considered archaic though still understood, is a wonderful message. Why did Christ come to earth? So that God’s purpose in redemption would be fulfilled. So that sinful mankind could be reconciled to God and put on a right and righteous path in a difficult world. How beautifully this verse says that. “…born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.” No preacher has ever said it better than that. No other song has said it in clearer or more melodious language.
Hence, I should really say nothing else. Christmas may have been the day before yesterday, but the Christmas season is still with us. Take a moment to sing “Hark, The Herald Angels Sing”, getting in all three verses (the song actually has more than three), and enjoy the richness of the message.
I’m hardly the first person to write about this. I found a blog post by one Daisy Rosales that was quite well done. It would be well worth your time to pop over there and read it.
Once again, merry Christmas. I continue to say that because we are still in the season. I’m still listening to Christmas carols as I do my work. I hope you do too.
We didn’t bother with a Christmas tree this year, except for the six miniature ones in the Christmas village.
I wrote last year on Christmas day that Lynda and I were having a quiet Christmas. ‘Tis the same this year. It will just be the two of us, the family having all been with us at Thanksgiving. Well, today we still have Rocky, our neighbor’s dog, with us. We’ve been watching him since Sunday while they got away for a pre-Christmas R&R trip.
Rocky is a good dog, but he’s homesick for his own family. They live four lots up the hill from us, three vacant lots in between. Our normal route to walk him takes us by his house, and he expects to be taken inside it. So we pull him along and he gets over it. In the evenings especially he seems restless and wants to go home. Last night was about the best for him settling down without a lot of difficulty.
I’ve always liked to display blue lights at Christmas, but this red lights display up on the next street is very nice.
The walks after dark have been very nice, as well as the early morning ones. Up on the next street, several houses have outdoor Christmas lights. Nice to walk by them and enjoy. On one of those early walks, before this warm front came through, I found the first frost flower I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard about them for a long time, but have never taken a leisurely walk in the right conditions for them to form. Thank you, Rocky, for making that possible.
One thing different this year from last is our church has returned to holding a candlelight Christmas eve service—two of them actually. Last year we elected not to hold them, with the covid pandemic still in its pre-vaccination stage. We are thinking of going to the 4 o’clock service. It will be good to gather with everyone and focus on Jesus’ birth for an hour.
Another difference is we hope to get together with my cousin Greg and his wife Bev. Although living just 8 or 9 miles apart, it’s been two years since we’ve seen each other. Greg’s health is tenuous and they have been taking lots of precautions. They were supposed to come for Thanksgiving, but he wasn’t feeling well and they cancelled. Our plans are to drive around Sunday evening and see Christmas lights. Beyond that nothing is planned. We may get hot chocolate somewhere and sit on the square in Bentonville, enjoying unseasonably warm weather under enough Christmas lights to read by.
Otherwise, we will read much, probably watch some TV, and eat a nice meal of turkey breast, dressing, and roast vegetables. We’ll eat on it for a week. Hopefully we’ll get to walk. Not with Rocky, however. His family returns today. We’ll take him to his house before we go to church. He’ll jump for joy as we open the door, only to be disappointed his family isn’t home yet (but will be soon).
So a merry Christmas to all. Remember the reason we celebrate it.
My parents didn’t send religious Christmas cards. These are typical of the leftover cards I’ve been storing for two decades plus, wondering what to do with.
On Tuesday just passed I attended the monthly meeting of the Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers. This is a small club of people who enjoy writing letters. The emphasis is on physical letters and pen pals (though for me, e-mails are equally letters). I learned about them around the first of March 2020 and attended their meeting shortly after that at the Bella Vista Library. Then the pandemic hit, and the library closed.
During the pandemic, we didn’t meet for the first few months. After a while they decided to meet outdoors, under the drive-through canopy of a church not too far from my house. We had to bring chairs, and even in the outdoor venue stayed away from each other. We met like that for over a year. Sometimes we cancelled when the weather was too hot or too cold. But it was a way to stay in touch.
The cards have a simple, non-sectarian message.
Even when the library re-opened, at first they wouldn’t allow groups to use the newly-constructed meeting rooms. The problem was a legal one. This is a private library, and the lawyers had some concern about outside groups, even groups sponsored by the library such as ours is, using the facility. They eventually worked that out, and we began meeting there in September.
That’s a long introduction to December’s meeting. We didn’t have a formal program. Rather, we were all to bring old cards to show around. That was perfect for me, because right now I have a lot of old Christmas cards out of boxes, making a mess of our house. These are cards, as seen in the photo at the beginning of this post, that I found at my dad’s house back in 1998. They appear to be remnants of cards my parents sent in the 1950s. You buy a box of 25 cards and use 22 out of it, putting the rest aside to use next year. When that comes around you buy another box of 25 and use 23 out of it, totally forgetting that you have three left over from last year. Now you have five left over. On and on it goes. A decade later you have a fair number of unused Christmas cards.
I’ve had these remnant cards in a box in the storeroom for all these years, sorted into their own large envelope, wondering what to do with them. I think there are between 35 and 40 of them, but only 4 envelopes. Last year I came to the conclusion we should send them as our Christmas cards next year (meaning now). Since these are a special size, without envelopes, what could we do?
The template, perfected on the third try and already put into use.
Well, for our meeting next month, the letter writing group is making envelopes as a craft project, and will share them around. We are to make 12 envelopes. If we choose to, of course. Now, I’m not an arts and craft person, and making envelopes as a craft project didn’t excite me. I pretty much decided I wouldn’t do the envelopes. Then I realized, I have a need to make envelopes, to use to send these cards.
Ah ha! A practical need is not really arts and crafts. It’s an environmentally friendly activity. Rather than trash those old cards, I can make envelopes to send them in. And, rather than use clean sheets of paper for the envelopes, I can use paper from the re-use stack, printouts of my writing that I planned on using the back to print other things on.
The first envelope off the assembly line. I like it. Not sure the wife will, however.
So yesterday, I took the time to create a template. That took a while. I used two sheets of paper to create envelopes before I had it right. Then I used one to trace the template on cardstock and cut it to size. I then made one envelope and tested it with the cards. It was perfect: just a little over-sized as I wanted it to be, since the size of the cards varies a little.
Envelope creation began immediately. I’m not sure Lynda will agree that sending these cards in an envelope created on the back of my writing sheets will be a good idea. No problem. If she doesn’t, I’ll just make others from clean paper and use these for the letter writers meeting in January.
It’s as close to being artsy-craftsy as I’ll ever come.
