Expecting: Sounds of the Season

I had only been in Dallas a couple of years. It was December, late afternoon as I walked to my car after class. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the 80s. I turn on my car, and Bing Crosby sings to me It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas. I laughed out loud. Right guy. Right song. Right season. Wrong environment. 80 degrees is not how Christmas looks to a northern girl.

It is tradition for our high school band to play Sleigh Ride at the Christmas concert. They have done it over 20 years. We would begin the day after marching season ended and work on it every day until the concert. It is a difficult song to play for most of the instruments. I was a clarinet. Our fingers had to fly, our tongues had to be even faster, and we had to go from middle to high range in less than a second. Most of the band hated the song. Not me. I loved the challenge it presented, but more than that, Sleigh Ride became synonymous with the beginning of Christmas. To this day, I still tongue along whenever I hear it.

Christmas music creates the season for me more than anything else. Bing must sing White Christmas, Nat King Cole must sing about chestnuts roasting, and Sleigh Ride must be arranged by Leroy Anderson or those sleigh bells don't jingle. I wait until after Thanksgiving to break out the music, and I mourn the day when I put it away. For this reason, I often extend the Christmas season to 06 January, the day of Epiphany in church history, just so I can listen to Christmas music longer. The older carols are my favorite--they are a perfect mix of poeticism and good theology--and I have memorized all the verses of most of them. The season is not complete without a heavy dose of Christmas music.

Below are some of my favorite songs of the season. What are yours?

O Holy Night!
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Sleigh Ride
Silent Night
O Come All Ye Faithful
Have a Holly Jolly Christmas
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
White Christmas
Carol of the Bells
The Holly and the Ivy
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
Coventry Carol
The Christmas Song
Little Drummer Boy
What Child Is This?
Joy to the World
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Feliz Navidad
Angels We Have Heard on High
Emmanuel by Michael W Smith
Welcome to Our World
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Breath of Heaven

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