I own 'em. Yup. Actually, they belong to my brothers and sisters, too, but I've got them all in my hot little hands.
I relive them all on Christmas Day. I rail against hearing Vince Guaraldi's Charlie Brown Christmas for the eighth or ninth time this season (and the third time in a row Christmas morning), and for some reason my CD player starts skipping during its shuffle mode.
So I go old school. I throw it back to the old albums, and I discover some really funny things.
For instance, I remember all the words to Mitch Miller and the Gang's rendition of Must Be Santa.
Bing Crosby sure can whistle, but his version of Wonderful White World of Winter beats out White Christmas for smooth listening.
Sometimes Dean Martin actually sounds sober.
Barbra Streisand's voice grates on my nerves.
Jan Peerce's rendition of Noel Nouvelet is something everyone should hear at least once in a lifetime.
Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme's arrangement of Sleigh Ride is a little annoying, but their arrangement of Let It Snow kicks it out of the park.
Andy Williams married a murderer. Actually, he divorced a French singer and then she became a murderer. Not an O.J. Simpson-like murderer; more of a manslaughterer.
The reason I have this eclectic collection of old recordings is because my father used to get his snow tires through Goodyear. Goodyear sponsored a Christmas compilation album every fall, and we managed to get a few. Or so the story goes. It's hard to remember the exact details because it's back when I lived in Framingham. Christmas memories from that far back consist of vague, fleeting pieces: a white tree, a spinning color wheel of light, a wreath over the white brick fireplace, a small ceramic tree with lights that sat on the dining room hutch, the delicate glass ornaments and the plastic spinning one (some of which are still on my tree).It has been a Christmas of throwbacks, as well. One of my gifts is a new electric fry pan, so I can finally toss out the old family one that I inherited and have been struggling with since the Teflon let go about a decade back. My sister gives me an old-school Operation game with a new twist: It's the Bumble from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Before dinner my three kids plus the two spouses we've gained so far all play a six-way game of Chinese Checkers using my father's old wooden board.
This makes the choice of music no big surprise, I suppose.
Either I've reached that age where I am constantly reliving my childhood or else Christmas just lends itself to an awful lot of looking back. It's that same old oh I remember that ... statement followed usually by the words toy, song, decoration, ugly sweater, candy, stocking, movie, television special. It's funny and strange to hear my kids talking about Christmas and reliving their memories, as if just a few years ago were so far a reach, as they talk about the way the holidays used to be. They use the same words and the same nostalgic timbre.
My daughter comes over late on Christmas Eve to wrap some very large boxes that have arrived for her husband's gift. She laments about how tired she is at 10:30 p.m. I tease her that when she has children, she'll be up a lot later wrapping, assembling, filling stockings, and hiding things under the tree.
A bit of Christmas past, present, and future all wrapped into one day. Maybe Dickens had it right, after all. Maybe we really can affect change all in one evening. It just takes a little bit of blind faith, a good dose of reality, and a whisper of things to come.
And some music; some damn fine old holiday music.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all. And to all, a good night.
