I Love Christmas Music

I have been listening to Christmas music. Have been for some time now. I think I began about the time the political ads became a cancer on the airwaves.

There is much that is soothing in listing to the melodies of childhood, for I do not listen to modern carols. No, I plug into the great artists who graced the Goodyear and Firestone albums each year. Bing, Frank, Julie, Andy, Lennon Sisters, Johnny Mathis, Robert Goulet, Steve and Edie, New Christy Minstrels and so many more.

For those of you not from Northeast Ohio, back in the late 60’s to early 70’s, the rubber giants of Akron sold Christmas albums each year in the grocery stores, or somewhere highly available. I was just a tot at the time. Goodyear’s were the best. It was to those albums we baked cookies, decorated the house, checked strings of lights and trimmed the tree. We had a state of the art stereo in a cabinet of pecan finish. Mom will correct me if I have it wrong. There was a compartment for the albums, a turntable where we stacked those precious LP’s and best of all, a red power light in the fabric that covered the speakers. It was this light that fascinated me as a child. It was just like Rudolph’s nose. I remember spending what seemed to be hours fascinated by it.

There was a sliding glass door from which we could watch the snow. A blonde oak piano where mom played carols and Christmas tunes from beautifully decorative sheet music old enough to have been sold for a nickel. Christmas choral and band concerts to perform and attend. Traditions of opening one gift before going to sunrise Church service and the yearly new dress. Memorizing the Christmas story from the second chapter of Luke. The pageants of shepherds in burlap, angel wings of cardboard trimmed with bright silver garland, halos of coat hangers, wisemen’s beards of cotton kept fast with rubber string. Opening gifts Christmas morning and then packing the station wagon to go back to the hills of Pennsylvania to spend the week with the grandparents. A farm still beloved and a house in a little coal mining town that still haunts my dreams.

All this and so much more comes flooding back when I click on Live365. A much better place to spend a few hours than in the midst of a presidential campaign.