Day 4: Music Makes The People Come Together

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Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
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My parents' house -- which sits on a lovely corner property and is on the market -- has a few storage spaces that are more heavily camouflaged than Waldo in a candy cane factory. And once within, these storage spaces are such effective hiding places for presents that, on more than one occasion, Mom has given me a present that she originally hid so well, she couldn't find it at the time she intended to give it to me. Also, though, there's just a lot of stuff in there. My first grade class wrote a weekly newsletter using carbon paper, and I'll bet somewhere up there is a stack of every "Lovi Local" in which I was ever published. Four kids times a lot of years equals a whole lot of precious memories.

Somewhere, among those precious memories, is the program for a holiday recital that we four kids put together for Mom and Dad. Last weekend, before I told her I was writing these stories, I asked Mom if she knew where to find the program, because I really don't remember much about this concert. It was obviously centered around the piano, and I remember we put up a few decorations, but what else? Would I have tried to play a Christmas song on the oboe? Or the recorder? How old was I at the time anyway? Had I started taking blues piano lessons yet, so that I would have done an improvisational version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"?

What does seem to be well-known about this family concert is that Ben dressed up as Santa Claus, and Allison was terrified of him. No one really knows why Allison was so afraid of Santa, but it was pretty serious. When Allison was a few years old, and she realized that Santa was going to come into our house in the middle of the night to deliver the presents, she freaked out. She absolutely would not have it. Mom and Dad had to put a note on the outside door telling Santa to leave the presents in the garage.

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Every year during Thanksgiving weekend, I would inaugurate the Christmas season by putting on side B of Bing Crosby's White Christmas album and dancing to it. It's worth noting that my entire knowledge of dancing, at this young age, came from the "Zoot Cat" episode of Tom & Jerry, so I really hope there is no video of this. Once I became, you know, "grown up," I decided this tradition was no longer befitting of someone of my maturity. Once I became actually grown up, I decided I wanted to hear the album again, so I picked up the CD and brought it out to the house for Christmas.

I still can sing along with every word on side B of that album. I remember every musical cue, every harmony, even how long the pauses last between songs. I feel calm and happy when I listen to it. It says "Christmas" to me in a way that not even a clever closing sentence could.