Day Three

I enjoy singing Christmas carols. The whole singing thing comes from my mother. She told me once that an instructor she had when she was young told her that she'd have to choose between having a family or a singing career. And she chose a family.

My mother was a member of the choir in church and I in turn was a member of the children's choir. Other boys were members, too, but stopped around 5th grade, when it became a girl thing. We sang for mass, standing on risers to the right of the altar, dressed in our nice clothes holding our blue hymnals and singing out to the back of the room, over the pews of faithful attendees.

On Christmas Eve my mother and I would sing the mass together. I remember practicing "The Little Drummer Boy" over and over at my mother's console piano in the living room of our old house. At the mass, drawing breath into my diaphragm rather than my stomach, my voice changing but just able to hit those notes, I sang with my mother behind me doing the "pah rum pum pum pum". That year they started a thing where Santa Claus came in, knelt at the altar and then left through the side door. And afterward my grandmother would hug me and smile and tell me how wonderful it had all been.

I haven't been a part of that stuff for a long time now, but on the special occasions, mass could be a great spectacle. It was inspiring. And I have my lack of faith and lack of concern for the birth of Christ and that meaning for the season now, but the spirit doesn't really change. Doing good, love, giving. And the songs are still great. You just have to accept that you can share in parts of something without joining the whole.

I remember my mother singing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and will always associate that with her. It's a part of my Christmas mythos. My favorite was "Silent Night", but now, as an adult, I'm more drawn to "Oh, Holy Night", as far as songs that reference "night" are concerned. I like singing the deep parts with my developed voice.

And I love singing "White Christmas" and "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "Winter Wonderland" at home and at work, but just in snippets there so I don't become too embarrassed by anyone noticing how well i can sing. I miss singing like that all the time.

With my sister's kids, my mom likes to pull out the piano bench and let them sit with her and bang on the keys while she plays Christmas songs, although it's difficult to call it "playing" when you end up with so much noise. I think this year I'll tell her we need to stop. They're not going to have any memory of these songs if they don't try to sing or listen.

I mean, if that's the one part of Christmas tradition that I won't let go of as an adult, no matter how I object to that with which some songs are associated, it must be pretty valuable.