Christmas means music to me. Our holiday has always revolved around school Christmas programs.
At school, from Thanksgiving on, we practiced for the Christmas play. Mamas made costumes for angels, shepherds, sheep. We envied the two who got to play Mary and Joseph.
We sang “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.” We memorized the unfamiliar words, singing them over and over with our music teacher, until we could sing them in our sleep.
With no shyness, we who loved to sing sang at the tops of our voices. The boys held nothing back, singing loudly. They were too young to know that the older boys thought singing was for “girls and sissies.”
We sang, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go,” and “Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer, had a very shiny nose,” and “I saw Mama kissing Santa Claus.”
In junior high, we enrolled in chorus class where the only boys there were the ones who could really sing or thought they could. The jocks didn’t have time for chorus. When we auditioned to find our part to sing, the chorus teacher simply placed some boys where he thought they should stand to look the best during performances. Fortunately many girls sang loudly and drowned out the few boys who couldn’t sing.
In high school, we began to sing the harder songs. “O, Holy Night,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” and “Hallelujah Chorus.” We started practicing long before Thanksgiving. Our Christmas concert was the culmination of months of work. We were proud of our hard work and effort and sang with all our hearts.
Christmas really starts with the Christmas songs being played over the sound systems at our favorite store. At a time when religious displays are being removed from public places, religious music is being played constantly for nearly two full months of the year. Imagine that.
Christmas music. What better way for God to get His word into our hearts?