A Night Wrapped in Song
…by Lydia Harris
The chilly wind blew as I huddled with other carolers outside our country church. I breathed in the crisp night air, shivering with excitement. After years of waiting, I was finally old enough to carol with the church choir. With church folk scattered throughout the rural area around Blaine, Washington, it would take most of the night to carol at each member’s doorstep. Bundled in my green woolen scarf and new gloves, I couldn’t wait to begin.
I remembered past Christmas Eves when my older siblings left the warmth of our family gathering at 11pm to carol. How I had longed to go along. At bedtime, I would beg my mother, “Please, wake me when the carolers come.”
When Mother awoke me in the middle of the night, I would peek out the dormer window of our green-and-white farmhouse. Sleepy-eyed and pajama-clad, I listened dreamily to the carolers with my nose pressed against the frosty window. They sounded like angels, singing Joy to the World and Silent Night. I returned their shouts of “Merry Christmas!” and nestled back in bed, wishing I could join them.
Now, after years of yearning and waiting, my turn had come. The wind nipped my rosy cheeks. A few snowflakes would make it perfect.
The choir director’s voice interrupted my dreaming. “Let’s get organized,” he said. “How many can take cars?” I looked around at the young men offering to drive. I hoped to sit in the front seat between a couple of them. But other teenage girls experienced at flirting won those seats. I piled into the backseat, just excited to go along.
We laughed and chatted as we drove through the countryside, stopping to sing for church members. By starlight and flashlight, we crunch-crunch-crunched our way over the frozen ground to the front doors of homes. Most folks expected us and flung their doors wide open, inviting us in for a snack, even at two or three in the morning. Sipping hot chocolate by the crackling fires warmed us inside and out.
We continued our caroling, refueled with Sloppy Joes, hot dogs and fudge. As the night wore on, our throats wore out from singing in the winter air. We sounded more like croaking frogs than the angelic choir I remembered hearing as a child.
After arriving home at five in the morning, I snuggled beneath my thick handmade quilt. I tried to snatch a few hours of sleep before the Christmas morning church service where the choir would sing again. But it was hard to fall asleep. The night had been better than I imagined.
More than fifty years later, all-night caroling on Christmas Eve remains a treasured memory. I savor those magical nights wrapped in song that warmed me like my new woolen scarf.
Several years ago, I returned to the church of my childhood and asked the pianist, “Does the choir still carol all night on Christmas Eve?”
Her face broke into a wide grin. “We sure do!”
It cheers my heart to know the caroling tradition lives beyond my dreams, filling the hearts of another generation of youthful carolers with a melody that will last forever.
Lydia Harris loves sharing Christmas with her children and grandchildren. She is the author of “Preparing My Heart for Grandparenting” and writes the column, “A Cup of Tea with Lydia”
Just Put Up the Christmas Lights
…by Pet MacDoran
It’s 1956 and I’m 15 years old, the eldest of four kids. Our mom is a real Christmas house-decorating enthusiast. I’m busy doing other stuff, but Mom says to get the stepladder and the big box of Christmas lights down from the garage rafters. I’m frequently on our house’s roof, installing my ham radio antennas, so I am the go-to person to be up on the ladder. I get the big box down and reach into this veritable snake pit of multi-strands of colored lights as I must verify that each bulb actually works and that I don’t bunch up the same color bulbs.
“Hi, what are you doing?” asks Louie, a precocious seven-year-old from across the street.
“My mom says I have to put up our Christmas lights,” I half-heartedly reply.
“What’s Christmas?”
“You get presents at Hanukkah, right?”
“I get eight presents…one each night.”
“Who brings the presents to you?”
“My mom and dad.”
“No, it’s actually Santa-Stein who is sometimes called Claus- Burg,” I inform him.
Louie thinks for a bit, then walks home. I manage to untangle the Christmas lights, verify their ability to provide optical cheerfulness and string them around the roof edges.
About an hour later, Louie’s mom comes across the street and knocks on our front door. I immediately think this can be trouble. My dad had previously cautioned me that making fun of someone’s religion was likely to cause problems. I overhear Louie’s mom relating how Louie had told her that it was Santa-Stein and Claus-Berg who actually brought Hanukkah gifts. Then she says, “It’s the funniest story I ever heard.”
Whew! Good luck for me that Louie’s mother had a good sense of humor.
Pete MacDoran is the author of “THE OLD MEN WILL DIE FIRST–A True Story of Cold-War Espionage” http://www.amazon.com/dp/ B01DB0B3WO
Christmas Blues, Part III
…by Charles Forsher
As my readers know by now, I am slightly obsessed by Elvis Presley’s Christmas Blues song (this is the third time I’ve written about it). I have, to date, sung the song for an audience exactly twice.
The first time was a number of years ago when volunteering for the Trinity United Methodist Church soup kitchen. They put on a Christmas event that year, including carolers. I had been faithfully helping to serve the homeless all year. I am sure these men and women were quite surprised to see me on stage, and they cheered me on through my presentation. What song could have been more poignant for a homeless person at Christmas than Elvis’ Christmas Blues?
This one-and-only performance as an Elvis Presley imitator would have been my singular way of honoring Elvis, until last year.
One of my new experiences as a senior was a prostate problem. I took medicine to alleviate the growing problem but to no avail. Initially, both my younger brother and I were against the surgery, but by December of 2015 it became apparent that I had no other choice. My brother stood with me at the doctor’s front desk when I asked for the first available date to schedule the operation… the earliest date was Christmas Eve. I figured that the sooner I got through this the better I would feel.
Following the pre-surgical instructions and treating the surgery as an imaginary senior boy scout elective, I marched bravely into the hospital prep room on the scheduled date and disrobed for a procedure surgeons would never have dreamed of a century ago. I woke up in a small boxy room all to myself on the seventh floor of Virginia Mason, warm and sleepy. I knew that a recovery period lay ahead, but felt confident. I dozed in and out of consciousness for the next several hours.
Sometime in the middle of the night, a woman came to look in on me. I felt sorry for her. I imagined she would have liked to have been with her kin and relatives on the night that Santa Claus travels in his magic sleigh pulled by his wonderful reindeer, delivering gifts to everybody in the world. What could I possibly give her for sacrificing her Christmas Eve to make hospital rounds?
Memories of Christmas songs I have heard over the years came to me. Then it struck me. I was laying in an echo-y hospital room and the answer was instantaneous. It was as if the song wasn’t coming from me, Christmas Blues echoing off of the boxy walls and surrounding the object of my compassion from all directions – as if Elvis Presley’s spirit was right there, personally serenading just her.
She stood transfixed, as Christmas Blues refocused her mind, for just those few moments, on things besides hospital rounds. She pulled away, turned and left with the last stanza.
Mission accomplished, I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
It has occurred to me that in these last eleven months that my gift has come back to me eleven fold, and in the most remarkable ways.
More nostalgic holiday stories can be found in the December 2016 issue of Northwest Prime Time (you can read it online at http://www.NorthwestPrimeTime.com and click on “Latest Issue”
