The Holiday season is always a time of reflection and happiness for me, albeit somewhat bittersweet since my Mom's passing some 6 years ago. I don't know why, but I'm still like a little kid at heart and this time of year leaves me almost giddy (no, its got nothing to do with happy hour). Its always been surprising to me that the suicide rate goes up this time of year, because it seems that this is when people are more the way people should be year round.
I remember the smell of red gravy and pitzels and the sounds of my parents' old Christmas LP's fondly. Yeah, my last name's Hancock but my Mother was 100% Italian. Dean and Bing and Frank would be heard through out the house, complete with the snap, crackle and pop that the old albums provided as background. There was something warm and reassuring about those holiday songs, and the artists that sang them. I'd come in from stringing lights and, with my Dad throwing logs on the fire, and Mom finishing up the tree, I'd steal a couple meatballs out of the pot and listen to that timeless music. At the end of each album, you'd wait just a second to make sure that the next record started to play. This meant it had dropped cleanly without getting stuck. Dean's show was #1 back then, and his renditions of 'Baby, its cold outside,' and 'Let it snow, let it snow,' sounded like Dino was in the next room. There was a happy glow in those days that made my brother, sister, and me realize how lucky we were.
After my wife tore me away from all that, I purchased the Time Life Christmas CD's, which was 4 discs of all the music I'd enjoyed back then. As far as I know, its still being printed and can be bought to this day. Along with the singers I've mentioned, it had Perry Como, Elvis, Karen Carpenter, and of course, Nat Cole. If you want to start a Christmas collection, you can't do any better than starting with that collection. I added other Christmas discs over the years, Ella, Vince Gerauldi (Peanuts), Andy Williams, even Sammy Kershaw. For years, I could only play them in succession, and then no more than five at a time. That all changed several years ago when I bought a CD jukebox, which stores 100's of discs and allows you to group them together.
Now I have, believe it or not, 17 different Christmas albums! Starting on Thanksgiving, when both families come to our house, that music plays right thru Christmas (with breaks for football games, of course). I simply hit 'shuffle' and the jukebox selects any one of 100's of favorites. Pavarotti's 'O, Holy Night' may be followed by Frank's 'The Christmas Waltz' (probably my favorite), followed by the Boston Pops' 'Sleighride'. I have Johnny Mercer singing 'Winter Wonderland' in 1945, after the bells of peace are struck for the first Christmas when all the GI's have returned home from overseas. I have Andy Williams 'Its The Most Wonderful Time.' The only somewhat 'modern' song that I have is Amy Grant's 'Grown Up Christmas List', which, for my money, is the only Christmas recording worth squat after the 60's.
I know, you're going to say that the MP3's and I-Pods are going to make my CD collection obsolete, just as cassetes and CD's did my parents' LP's. I can only say, if my kid remembers the house he grew up in the way I remember mine, they served their purpose. And they sound just fine to me. In fact, after Thanksgiving dinner, my sister complained that I hadn't started playing the Christmas music yet. She didn't have to ask twice.
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