A Christmas Carol: Christmas music

Sooner or later, you see, it draws you in. You may fight it – you may even choose to write about it, and take three different attempts to express it.

Sooner or later, the Christmas music goes on. You find yourself hovering over the iPod, the CD rack, whatever your musical set-up. All of a sudden, there is a need to listen to Christmas music. Over here, it hit today.

Back from the school run, not even the hint of a carol from Junior Reader, or me humming one, but I could tell the time had come to put on the music, and agree that Christmas is in fact on its way.

The trouble has been that the key Christmas music I want to tell you about is in the cheese category. Some music is cheesy, some is cheesy and then rehabilitated (think of the success of Ultralounge albums).

And some albums could pretty much open up their own delicatessen round the corner from you. The cheese factor is that high.

The thing I’ve realised is that it doesn’t really matter. Dan was out for the day on Saturday, allowing me to indulge my fromagerie side. By Sunday, he’d put his ‘this means Christmas’ album on.

His album: I like some of. There’s other bits where it really doesn’t do it for me. But that’s OK. Different people – different childhood experiences. And that seems to be the key to the thing: ‘the Christmas music’ is often set when you are young.

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Christmas Past

It was snowy. I was almost two. We were on our way to Germany for Christmas, at the time when my grandparents were there. I suspect The Music first presented itself on that trip, and my father got a copy of it later.

The Music, you see, is James Last – he of the sweeping strings. Think significant easy listening, with a frisson of panpipes from time to time.

But at whatever point in making his many albums, he did a Christmas one – and that is where The Music comes from. He is German, after all, so it’s kind of fair (I looked it up).

The point of The Music was that it went on at home when we were putting up the Christmas tree. It was in many ways the parental acknowledgement that Christmas was here, that all was well in the world.

These days, I tend to get all emotional when I hear it. Somehow, it conveys incredible safety, peacefulness, all those ‘slowing down and stopping’ feelings that we hope to experience over Christmastime.

I indulged myself in a bit of a re-run, with the help of YouTube. If you want to follow along, here’s where to look – and here’s the person who decided to put all the tracks up on YouTube.

What stood out for me more, this time, was that all the tracks are German. Yes, there’s Silent Night too, but much of what I was falling in love with was things like Bach’s Von Himmel Hoch, or classic German Christmas carols like Suesser die Glocken nie klingen.

For some reason, my later language study didn’t really include German Christmas music.
But I had been pointed in the right direction, at least.

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Christmas Present

What makes Christmas music that is ‘ours’ changes over time. It expands, as we encounter different people, different music in various situations.

Christmas music in our home has many flavours. There are classical, like the Hely-Hutchinson Carol Symphony (those of my generation will find the music for The Box of Delights hidden within the whole).

There’s the sparse but beautiful A Ceremony of Carols, by Benjamin Britten – our school choir’s first real go at an oratorio.

There’s gospel, particularly Take 6’s He is Christmas. Or Dan’s favourite, the gospel-infused Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration.

Again, if you’re of a certain generation, Christmas one year was not just about The Box of Delights TV series, but also about Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?

At a time when I actually knew what was in the charts, there were plenty of groups doing their pitch at a Christmas No. 1 – and I really won’t mention them all.

There is also the socially acceptable Christmas cheesy music, whether it’s yet another version of Let it Snow, or Santa Baby (but stick to Eartha Kitt’s version, please).

And of course there are actual carols, even. I’m a fan of the ones that are on the atmospheric side, with The Coventry Carol probably as all-round winner for sheer spine-tinglingness.

Now that I’m underway with the Christmas listening, so to speak, I’m sure I’ll find time to slip in a few more. Like Christmas chocolate, or bulk satsuma consumption, there is always space for another piece of Christmas music.

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Christmas Future

Who knows what else will join the canon of Christmas music in the future?

Junior Reader can be relied on to belt out ‘Three Kings are Riding’, a version that belongs to a school nativity of two years back. I kind of hope that will keep going for some time – even if I am less fond of its return in August.

Christmas traditions of others show you that there are many ways to consider, and celebrate, Christmas. So hang out with more people. Add in some Christmas carols in other languages, if you can.

For some people, Christmas isn’t Christmas without tuning in to Carols from King’s, the annual broadcast of nine lessons and carols from King’s College in Cambridge. While also peeling the sprouts, I believe.

(I have already alluded to my thoughts about sprouts, but I like a little bit of Christmas Eve tradition.)

Christmas music covers all the guises of Christmas, it seems. Whether you want to make merry or kick back, shout for joy or stand in awe and wonder – it’s all there.

What you couldn’t stand to hear in shops in October, what you stop your child singing at the beach in June – turn the corner into the cold and the dark, and suddenly the music is there again.

It doesn’t really matter what it is. As long as it’s yours. And even if it’s cheesy, at least Christmas allows you to provide crackers too.

Eat up.

A Christmas Carol: decorating the tree

There is a health warning that comes with writing about Christmas trees. I feel I need at least a couple of caveats to say who I am in writing this (and who I’m not):

I’m not a Christmas tree decorator: fresh with new ideas and seasonal themes. (I quite like the odd blue tree, now and then, but it’s not what I have in my Christmas decorations box.)

I’m not here to have the debate about when the Christmas tree should go up. (I will confess it took me by surprise when I learned that some families in the States put up their Christmas tree straight after Hallowe’en.

But then there seem to be so many variants on this, including putting up the tree on Christmas Eve itself, that there really doesn’t seem to be one pattern to follow. Other than,
I think it’s fair to say, enjoying it when you do.)

I am a fan of real Christmas trees – but I do understand if you are not. (That’s why the eco box is ticked, folks, but also because I have specific memories about real Christmas trees, which I am happy to continue to re-experience as best I can.)

There. Cards on the table (if not pegged to strings, hanging from stairs, and so on).
I think I can now begin.

I hope you are sitting comfortably, because it often seems to take longer to unpack a box of Christmas decorations than it does to actually put them up. Just saying.

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Christmas Past

There was the memorable year when we did the proper thing, bought the tree with roots, planted it in the garden after Christmas. Whereupon it waited until November the next year to turn yellow and give up the ghost.

So as a result, the trees I remember had a certain pattern of Effort connected with them.
The tree would be acquired, yes, but then it would sit in a bucket of water in the garage until The Time arrived to bring it into the house.

(I can’t tell you when the time was, of course. See rules above.)

The tree would be brought into the sitting room, followed by a certain amount of puffing over getting it upright in its stand, putting Christmas paper round to hide the bucket.

The second Herculean task, in the old days, was (part 1) the unwrapping of the Christmas lights and (part 2) the painstaking working your way along the string, working out which bulb needed replacing so that the whole string would then shine when you plugged them in.

Only after these tasks were completed, and the lights were onto the tree, could the decorating begin. And while the decorating took place, the music played. (I am working up to telling you about the music.)

I suspect that everyone has their favourites when it comes to Christmas decorations.
With a younger brother to contend with, there might be small skirmishes over who got to hang up which items.

I suspect also that there are some decorations which one family member dislikes but another champions enthusiastically. So I loved the little cardboard angels, finger puppet size, that you could pop over the end of a branch.

My liking for them was tolerated – and when I was old enough to be doing my own Christmas tree, they were passed on to me. So everyone’s happy in the end, really.

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Christmas Present

I think the thing about decorating the tree is that it feels like it’s really and truly Christmas soon. The magic starts in earnest, even if it officially began earlier in the month with the advent calendar.

I think it’s also fair to say that parents are keen to see children decorating the tree. There’s something about the ooing and aahing over particular decorations that a child can do.

It gets the adult in that particular spot where that little flicker of magic still exists inside.
(A pilot light in our Christmas boiler? Why not.)

I know our own first family Christmas did something to stoke the heat again. The fervour isn’t always the same every year, of course.

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Christmas Future

I realise now that we approach the Christmas tree decorating the way we approach many familiar tasks in December: with a freshness and anticipation (if we’re lucky), or with a certain tiredness and grumpiness (depending on how much else has been going on).

When decorating the tree is the gold standard for setting the Christmas mood, anything other than joy and wonder doesn’t work. And that can lead to disappointment, tears and other things that you really didn’t want to receive for Christmas.

All I can predict here is that the mood will change year by year. The importance of it, the impact of the tree (especially at night, with lights lit) will be different at different times.

That’s OK. I think of it a little like an attempt to make a plant bloom, at a time of year when many plants are looking thin, leafless, and rather chilly.

The effect won’t last forever (at least not with a real tree). Needles drop, trees yellow, ornaments sag after a bit. (To say nothing of the dangers of marauding cats.)

But at a cold, dark time of year, it’s good to dream of trees that grow. Of plants that bloom. Of stumps that put forth shoots.

It begins in the cold time, when growth is happening, but we can’t yet see it. We hasten it along a little, by our own efforts.

It’s not the tree of life, not by a long shot. But it can remind us of it, if we choose.

 

A Christmas Carol: Christmas scents (old and new)

What evokes Christmas for you is so closely tied to your own culture: the sights, the sounds.

And the smells. Given that our brain links scent to memory in such a powerful way, often a key part of the season is the smells.

That’s why supermarkets stock bottles of ready-made mulled wine, and much more besides. If we want to stoke the fires of Christmasses past, surely scent is a brilliant shortcut into reliving those moments that made Christmas special before.

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Christmas Past

For me, it’s pretty straight forward. It’s satsuma and Christmas tree: citrus and pine, if you will. Those are the key Christmas scents.

The satsuma is the classic item for the Christmas stocking. In my childhood, it was one thing you could count on, along with a shiny coin (usually only 2p, but specially shone up for the occasion).

In amidst whatever chocolate eating goes on on Christmas morning, the satsuma is in there, perhaps as a valiant hope that some more nutritious food might also be consumed. (It’s still sugar, folks, but it’s good sugar.)

The pine is the smell of a Christmas tree – particularly if you sneak the chance to sit under it, at night, lights on. (Don’t be confused by pine cleaning products. They’re nothing like as smoky and wonderful).

Bit by bit, more scents have joined the must-have collection. Spices are a key part of Christmas, whether it’s in the mulled drinks or the baking.

Cinnamon and cloves are two of my favourites, but there’s a clear case to make for ginger too – especially if you are of a gingerbread house-building persuasion.

Especially when you are in the early days of December, and Christmas itself seems a long way off (at least, to the junior members of your household), scent is a way of making the connection. Not quite, but really soon…honest.

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Christmas Present

I’m trying something different this year – burning Christmassy-smelling candles, a present from last year.

It becomes a way to bring a little seasonal something at teatime, or when we’re reading stories. Junior Reader is also enjoying getting to blow out the candle at the end of the story time.

The usual suspects are there – and also a cranberry kind of scent, fruity and spicy at the same time.

The satsumas are now out in force in the fruit bowl. I wonder casually (but internally) whether you would get more of a scent if you burned the peel in the candle flame at the same time.

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Christmas Future

I’m beginning to think there must be an option for candles (or pot pourri or other smelling item of your choice) that cover other Christmassy smells.

I’d like one that does the slight gunpowder smell of a just-pulled Christmas cracker or party popper. There is a scent too to those paper hats in crackers, the ones that never quite fit.

I’m sure there must be an option for liquor scents, the ones that accompany gooey wrapped chocolates, the brandy on a Christmas pudding, or the sherry-enriched Christmas cake. (I’m sure it would come in useful for parties where someone has to drive home afterwards.)

But the clincher would no doubt be one that would summon up all the smells of a Christmas dinner. Ideally, one after another, like the chewing gum that Violet Beauregard can’t resist. (Preferably without a sudden surprise at the pudding stage, as Violet encountered.)

However, I would hope we can all agree that there is no market for sprout-scented candles.

A Christmas Carol: secret Santa

There are many phrases used at this time of year that can bring you out in a cold sweat. And I suspect ‘secret Santa’ is pretty high up on the list.

For those who have not encountered the phrase, this is the notion of buying something for someone else in a group. A price limit is set. Sometimes there are other rules (e.g. no toiletries).

You know who you are buying for, but the recipient doesn’t know who bought it. Thus, you are a secret Santa – and so is everyone else involved.

This sounds all very straight forward. Money-saving, potentially. Plus you get a nice little buzz at the work Christmas do when people open their presents.

That’s the theory.

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Christmas Past

I first encountered secret Santa activities when I was working in a cafe, after leaving school. There wasn’t a Christmas party (we were the catering, after all) but there were little gifts for each other.

With an almost exclusively female staff, it could have been very easy for people to buy bubble bath, and have done with it. To make it a bit more challenging, and personalised, the rule was introduced that you were not to buy toiletries.

Whoever bought for me knew what she was doing. We had a lot of regular customers at the cafe, some of more interest to the (aforementioned) female staff than others.

So I received a book token – which meant a) the buyer knew I liked books and b) I could go into the bookshop a few doors up where a certain regular customer worked.

Of course, it didn’t quite work like that. There was someone else on the cash desk on the day I went in to choose my book. But it was a good try.

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Secret Santas get a bit harder when the group of staff gets bigger: and you don’t really know who you are buying for. Your presents get a bit more generic, to be on the safe side.

One year I didn’t know the person at all but crossed my fingers and went with one of these (in orange). Luckily it went down well. Phew.

My difficulty came where secret Santa clashed with ‘snide Santa’. Some people, aware they couldn’t get much for their money (probably five pounds), went with the ironic Christmas present option.

The presents weren’t outright rude (there is, of course, big money to be made in rude presents). But they were fairly deliberately chosen for their ugliness, it seemed.

This was probably fun in the buying. I’m sure it was. But my present-buying Santa was still back in the good old days of present buying while abroad.

So I would spend time picking out something I liked (yes, we obviously do buy presents for others that we ourselves like). And receiving something that had been sniggered over.

I’m concerned I sound like I’m on my high horse here. Because getting a present you like can be a lovely thing – and there is a charm to it when someone gets it right.

Particularly when you don’t know who to thank, but everyone just glows a little. (Or maybe that’s the Christmas party alcohol kicking in.)

I don’t think I’m alone in my uncertainties on the merits of secret Santa. (Wikipedia kindly confirmed that the original intention works out in some strange ways, if you read on in the article).

I could hunt up other blog posts on the same topic – but searches are overtaken by stores offering the ideal solution to your secret Santa dilemma. Because with a ready market for people all looking for a low-cost present, why wouldn’t you sell to that?

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Christmas Present

I do go to Christmas dos for work, these days. For whatever reason, there is no secret Santa element. Maybe it’s the recession, maybe it’s just one less thing for everyone to do.

I tend to draw a sigh of relief. (So, I’m sure, does the senior member of staff. No dressing up duties.)

I am contemplating something different this year, but maybe closer to the notion of a secret Santa. The shoebox present, with toys but also essential items, for kids who genuinely lack for the basics we take for granted.

I know I’ve missed out on the big ‘first, find your shoebox’ aspect. The choosing, maybe the putting it together with someone else.

But I’ve realised you can still do it online – you pick the items, the organisation puts it together.

These days, you can say who it’s from – and you can even register your parcel online so that you find out where your particular shoebox has gone to. I like that notion.

But I also like the notion of secretly choosing and giving – with the prospect of all the joy for the one who opens the present. That’s really what we’re after.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas crafting

I have been deliberating about the best way to put this. I could have said ‘making your own decorations’, but that felt rather similar to an earlier post, so I went with crafting instead.

Crafting is big business, of course. People will pay good money for hand-crafted this and hand-made that. Which is good, too, because handmade items can look lovely.

But crafting is also about making your own, and enjoying it. And if you are lucky, having others to join you in your making.

And that, maybe, is the real deal. Because the run-up to Christmas, the anticipating, is brought forward little by little through shared activities.

It might be buying the tree. Or putting up decorations. But it could also be about joining forces to make things ready. To make things beautiful, as best you can.

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Christmas Past

This story starts with a certain microwave. At this distance of time, I can’t quite remember who owned what, or borrowed what. I think we borrowed a microwave for a time.

So when the microwave went back to its rightful owner, I said thank you by giving the lender a book: on how to make decorations through microwaving them.

That doesn’t sound promising when I write it here. I could show you nice pictures of that kind of book, to cheer things along. And I knew my friend liked making things, so it was a fair choice.

But the main deal is that, our first Christmas as a married couple, we were starting to put together our own Christmas decorations. We needed some, and we didn’t have a lot of money.

So my memory is of being with my friend, in her kitchen, using cutters and cocktail sticks and little drops of food colouring, conjuring up a set of Christmas decorations for us both.

There was a lot of counting, and hopping about, because you had to cook each piece in the microwave a few times over. Plus you also had to let each piece rest before you cooked it some more. Lots of counting.

Lots of fun. I am not particularly able visually (though my friend is, and then some), but that was OK. We made it work, each in our own way. And we enjoyed the time together, doing so.

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Christmas Present

The Christmas tree decorations haven’t quite come out yet. (There’s a post on Christmas tree decorating to come, too.)

But I can visualise the pieces even while they lie there in the cardboard box that used to contain Lebkuchen.

The jolly snowman, with a piece of green ribbon around his neck for a scarf. The small blue whale, slightly unsure of himself up in a tree, and still trying to work out where the thread should go so that he remains upright.

Stars various. Something that might have looked like a cloud when it was cut out and now really just looks like a lump of dough. (Not every artistic experiment works.)

They are sturdy, and uncomplaining when I pack them away each year. Not every piece comes out each time now. There are further decorations now, some gifts, some further makes that I helped with.

But like the best of decorations, these come with a memory attached. An enjoyment of time spent with another.

The snowman is smiling. (He’s always smiling. It’s to do with the food colouring mouth.)
He know I’ve just written about him, and he has high hopes of a place on the tree this year.