dual personalities

Tag: Christmas

December 12, 2012

This little babe

by chuckofish

I was listening to Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols while I drove to work yesterday. It is good stuff. There is even a harp.

But I cannot hear any of it without being instantly transported back to my high school days in the school choir in the second soprano section. One of my friends was every bit as funny as, say, Ellen DeGeneres. Funnier really. She could do an “opera voice” better than anyone, and many of these Britten tunes really begged for it. She could really get us second sopranos going–and by that I mean giggling, not singing. I’m sure we were the bane of several super-serious choir directors we tortured over the years.

This little Babe, so few days old,
Has come to rifle Satan’s fold.
All hell doth at his presence quake
Tho’ he Himself with cold doth shake.
For in this weak unarmed wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

Oh. Yes.

Here is a sample of Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols sung by the boys’ choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was written, of course, for trebles (boys), but we girls did pretty well, giggling aside.

Gives you chills, doesn’t it?

5 Comments
December 10, 2012

Weekend update

by chuckofish

Oh, weekends in December! So busy and filled with seasonal activities such as buying Christmas trees ‘n such.

On Saturday the husband and I hopped in the Subaru and headed over to our local Optimists lot where the fellas are very friendly and helpful. We picked out two trees (one big and one small) and as my husband disappeared into the trailer to pay, I moseyed over to talk to….yes! Santa!

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I asked if I could take his picture and then one of the guys directed me to sit on Santa’s knee. I demurred. He insisted. Santa admitted to having a titanium knee. Hilarity ensued.

santa

Then one of the guys said, “Oh that’s a terrible background. Let’s move some trees over there…”

tree 1

More picture-taking, even less flattering than the first batch, so I will cease and desist at this point to share any more. You get the picture.

I am telling you, we are well on our way to December 25th! I put up the little tree.

xmastree

It is beautiful, isn’t it? We’ll put up the big tree next weekend when daughter #2 gets home.

On Sunday the boy and his bride came over and we went to the Service of Lessons and Carols at Grace. It was very nice, but I was distracted by the woman in front of me who went to my high school where every year the choir put on a Festival of Lessons and Carol of its own, the old school English version. This woman was a few years ahead of me (7) and was a cool-girl-hockey-player, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how she’s 63 years old now! Could it have been that long ago that we sang Ralph Vaughan Williams in the school chapel? Yes, it has. Turns out, she saw our sign out in front announcing our Lessons and Carols service and she decided to come. I told her it was great to see her and I hoped she’d come back.

‘Cause you sure as hell can’t go home again. Onward and upward.

Anyway, we are well into Advent. Blessings be upon you and yours. Here’s “Gabriel’s Message” sung by the King’s College (Cambridge) Choir to start off your week right:

8 Comments
December 6, 2012

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

by chuckofish

tomandchris

christom

This is a picture of handsome Tom and Chris which I put out every Christmas. A good memory of Christmas Past on 231. I must say the tree looks pretty sad! I guess my mother had given up on tree perfection by that point. I have no doubt that the tree was beautiful “in real life”. You know what I mean. I’m sure we oohed and ahhhed about the tree.

And how cute are these guys?

Pinecone elves from Martha Stewart

Pinecone elves from Martha Stewart

If I were the crafty type, I would be all over these.

But I’m just not anymore. This is more my speed: a candle in an old cup and saucer with fake berries. But it looks nice!

candle

I like decorating for Christmas with vintage photos of my family up close and personal with Santa.

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I am not big on pictures of my children everywhere throughout the house…except at Christmas. Then (for some reason) it’s appropriate.

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I used to send my children’s class pictures to my out-of-town friends. Once one of them sent them back to me in the form of Christmas ornaments, which I thought was awe-some.

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As you can see, I (try to) take things slowly in the month of December, taking out my decorations gradually. Still ahead? Trees!

So give us joyful, cheerful hearts to the glory of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

10 Comments
December 5, 2012

What’s going on here?

by chuckofish

Christmas cacti are kind of the perfect plants. You put so little effort into them, and they reward you with such extravagant gifts!

cactus1

Gosh almighty, aren’t they something?

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Well, I for one would not want to let their heroics go unnoticed! Bravo.

Here’s a little something I found tucked away in an upstairs closet the other day.

snowball

A Charlie Brown Christmas snow globe! How nice to discover an ‘old’ decoration which seems ‘new’ again!

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I haven’t watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) yet this year, but it’s a good idea. I was in the fourth grade when it debuted, the first animated Peanuts special (and still the best). It is astonishing to me that Charles Schulz got away with having Linus explain the true meaning of Christmas by actually reciting Luke 2:8-14 from the King James Version of the Bible. It is a modern miracle. The success of the show was and continues to be a perfect vindication. (A total of 50% of the televisions in the United States were tuned to the first broadcast. A Charlie Brown Christmas won an Emmy and a Peabody award, and is today considered to be one of the most beloved animated holiday specials of all time.)

Out of the mouths of babes, as they say:

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.'”

That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

6 Comments
November 30, 2012

This and that

by chuckofish

Bloggers are fond of featuring gift ideas ‘n such at this time of year. I will desist from compiling a guide of that type, but I do want to point this out:

A literary map of the U.S.A.! (available here) Really, some people are just so clever!

I have yet to blog about any Christmas movies, and last night I had planned to watch (the original, of course) Miracle on 34th Street (1947), starring Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwen, and little Natalie Wood.

I was inspired after daughters #1 and #2 blogged about this year’s Macy’s parade balloons which they saw up-close and personal this year.

But, lo and behold, the movie was missing from my stash of Christmas movies! Everything else was there on the shelf, but no 1947 Miracle on 34th Street! Really, this is just the worst, isn’t it? When you’re all set to watch something and someone has borrowed it and not returned it! Grrrrr. This put me in a very grumpy mood.

Well, back to the drawing board.

Did you know that there is a Richard Scarry tumblr? Well, there is. It’s called Busy, Busy World, what else?

I have been a Richard Scarry fan for a very long time. I was still getting Richard Scarry books for Christmas well into high school. Yes, indeed, I was. Instant cheer up.

6 Comments
January 7, 2012

Westward leading, still proceeding

by chuckofish

Thursday night I went to the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ Evensong at Grace Church. It was a lovely respite during a busy and stressful week. The church was still decorated with white poinsettias and trees with white twinkly lights. The three wise men had joined the rest of the creche figurines before the altar. And we got to sing “We Three Kings”–always a favorite. I remember learning it for my first Christmas Pageant, which was held actually at my school (back in the good old days). The Junior Kindergartners made up the “choir”. We wore freshly-ironed white cottas with big red bows and carried these neat flash-light candles. We sang in the near-dark. It was very mysterious and cool. And “We Three Kings” was a very mysterious and cool hymn. All that traversing afar, over field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. Not to mention that dramatic ohhhhh-ohhhh-ing into the refrain! Then there is that fourth verse:

Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing,
bleeding, dying,
sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

Awesomely descriptive and creepy. I can honestly say that was the best pageant I was ever in. The next year, as a Senior Kindergartner, I was given a part (with a solo) so it was much more stressful. I was Joseph. (Yes, I went to an all-girls’ school.) My best friend, Trudy Glick, played the Innkeeper, and we could barely contain our hilarity during our important conversational exchange concerning the lack of room at the inn. Oh well. At least I didn’t faint, like my good friend Harriet who played an angel. And I made it (tremulously I’m sure) through my solo.

Good times. Were you ever in a Christmas pageant?

3 Comments
December 31, 2011

Time to pack up Christmas

by chuckofish

Yes, it all has to go back in the boxes, back in the basement. Sigh. Like Scrooge I will endeavour to “honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.”

1 Comment
December 29, 2011

Just saying

by chuckofish

Siblings are one of our greatest gifts. Take a moment to be thankful for yours if you are lucky enough to have one or two. As the Rt. Rev. Desmond Tutu said, “You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”

2 Comments
December 24, 2011

Santa sighting

by chuckofish

Could that be ANCIII (our Scrooge-y pater whose favorite yuletide expression was Bah Humbug) dressed up as Santa? No way, dude. But, yes, there he is bringing gifts to fun-loving, guitar-playing M.I. girls from the American Field Service Club in 1965. How did they ever prevail upon him to appear in public like that? Thank goodness some Polaroid-carrying party-goer snapped this once-in-a-lifetime moment for posterity. Good times.

1 Comment
December 23, 2011

The little lord Jesus

by chuckofish

“Away in a Manger” is a Christmas carol first published in an Evangelical Lutheran Sunday School collection, Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families in 1885 in Philadelphia and used widely throughout the English-speaking world. For many years the text was credited to the great German reformer Martin Luther because in the book Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses (1887) it bore the title “Luther’s Cradle Hymn” and the note, “Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” This is pretty much accepted as not the case, but it is nice to think so.

Luther was, after all, a prolific hymn writer, authoring many important hymns including Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), based on Psalm 46. And Luther was a married man and the father of six children. He married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, and we are led to believe he never regretted it. Luther confided to Michael Stiefel on 11 August 1526: “My Katie is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus.” Would that all husbands felt this way.

Anyway, it is one of my favorite Christmas carols, expressing in a wonderful childlike way, the bottom line of Christmas: God incarnate.

Away in a manger,
No crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus
Laid down His sweet head

The stars in the bright sky
Looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay

The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes

I love Thee, Lord Jesus
Look down from the sky
And stay by my side,
‘Til morning is nigh.

Be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever
And love me I pray

Bless all the dear children
In Thy tender care
And take us to heaven
To live with Thee there

4 Comments