I love Christmas music. This year (like many years, let’s be honest), I started playing it the week before Halloween. I’m still not tired of it.
Long before I knew there was research on the power of music to affect our minds and moods, I had discovered for myself that my children acted differently when there were different types of music playing. With a large number of children, I needed the most calm possible for all of us. I ended up with two favorite genres — New Age (think Enya, David Lanz or Yanni) and religious (think The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, Amy Grant or Hilary Weeks).
There is a special category in my heart, though, for Christmas music. The repertoire of memorized Christmas songs in my brain is large. I suspect if I ever get dementia, I’ll still be able to sing along with Christmas songs.
One of the reasons I love the music of the season so much is that, as a woman of faith, I love that, for a few weeks at least, the Christian world focuses on Jesus Christ. I love songs that celebrate the baby born in a manger more than 2,000 years ago. I love songs that invite us to put ourselves in the place of the wise men or the innkeeper or a young mother, pregnant for the first time. Here are some songs with special meaning:
Natalie Grant’s “I Believe” shares that Christ was “more than a fable.”
“I believe
The Wise Men saw
The baby boy the angels
Called the son of God
Heaven’s child
The great I am
Born to take away my sins
Through nailed pierced hands
Emmanuel has come
I believe.”
“Candlelight Carol” always reminds me of those first tender days with a brand-new baby.
“How do you capture the wind on the water?
How do you count all the stars in the sky?
How do you measure the love of a mother
Or how can you write down a baby’s first cry?
Candlelight, angel light, firelight and star-glow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn
Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo!
Angels are singing; the Christ child is born.”
And “Mary’s Lullaby”? I had a 12-day-old baby one Christmas, which really caused me to reflect on Mary and how she must have felt. I am sure she cherished her time with her tiny baby.
“All mine in your loveliness,
Baby, all mine;
All mine in your holiness, Baby Divine.
Sing on, herald angels, in chorus sublime;
Sing on and adore, for tonight you are mine.”
Perspective changes everything
There was a time when my least favorite Christmas hymn was “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” That all changed when I heard the story behind the words. It is now one of my favorites and holds a tender spot in my heart.
My 11th cousin, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America’s best-known and most-beloved poets of the 19th century, was no stranger to grief. His first wife, Mary, died of complications following a miscarriage. He subsequently fell in love with and wooed Frances (Fanny) Appleton over a period of seven years. They were wed in 1843 and became the parents of six children, losing one in infancy.
Tragedy struck again in 1861 when Fanny was using a candle and sealing wax. Drops of hot wax fell on her gauzy dress and engulfed her in flames. Longfellow tried to put out the flames, using his own body, but Fanny’s burns were too great and she died the next day. Longfellow was burned badly enough he could not attend the funeral and his facial burns prompted the growing of a beard to cover the scars.
The first Christmas without her, Longfellow wrote in his journal, “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays.” The next December, he wrote again in his journal, “A ‘merry Christmas’ say the children, but that is no more for me.”
One year later, in 1863, he sat by the bedside of his son, Charley, who had been severely injured in the Civil War. He heard church bells ringing in Christmas morning and he began to write:
“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
His grief still evident, he writes the words now so familiar to us:
“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Merry Christmas, everyone.
