By Susan W.
I think all of us have favorite things about Christmas that bring wonderful memories. I love the music and songs. “O Christmas Tree,” simple as it, is will always be one of my favorites. To hear that song, magically takes me back to when I was a child. We had brought home a real Christmas tree and finished decorating it and settled in for a comfortable evening with the family. Then, all of a sudden, we noticed that we were not alone. We had been invaded by hundreds of baby praying mantises! The tree was home to a nest of the little fellows, and they hatched when warmed up in our living room.
One of our staff, Jim P., remembers Christmas in 1969. He was a very young soldier in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Their troop consisted of youngsters, the oldest being 24 and the youngest being 17. They were a long way from home. They had been shot at all week. One of them came up with the idea of having a Christmas tree. There were no plants around there that looked anything like a Christmas tree, so they decided to make one. Twigs, bits of uniforms, aluminum cans, all went into building their tree. They decorated it with buttons, pins, anything and everything they could find. He said it was the strangest looking “tree” he had ever seen, and most would have called it ugly but he still has a picture of that Christmas tree, and remembers it more than any other.
The Library has both music and musical scores of Christmas music. O Christmas Tree is included on these:
CD HIT Main New age Christmas: a tribute to Mannheim Steamroller
786.2172 Main The Definitive Christmas collection
J783.65 SIL Main Silent night : a Christmas carol sampler
CD JFRO HANGING BAG Main Frosty's sleigh ride party 24 songs & stories.
CD J COU HANGING BAG - 2 CDs Main Christmas is for kids!
CD J CHI HANGING BAG - 1 CD Main Christmas with the Chipmunks by Alvin, Simon & Theodore with David Seville.
Showing posts with label Christmas music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas music. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Staff Christmas: Stille Nacht
By Doris
When I was ten years old, my family moved to Germany for three years. That first Christmas in a faraway country was like a fairy tale in so many ways. The Christmas Fair at Frankfurt, the toys in the windows of the little German shops, the beautiful hand blown tree ornaments, and the luscious pasties all added joy to a holiday for a very homesick child. One memory of that first German Christmas will always be with me—the music of “Silent Night” sounding in a small German church, and my first experience of hearing the song sung in German. All of us have heard the story that in 1818 the organ in a small Austrian church was broken. The priest Joseph Mohr took the words to a carol he had written in 1816 to his friend Franz Gruber and asked him to create guitar music for the carol so the children would have a song to sing for the Christmas Eve service. Thus came about the legend of one of the most poignant of our Christmas songs. Actually, the organ probably was not broken, and Mohr may have just wanted a new carol for the children, but no one can deny the absolute beauty of the gentle carol about Jesus’ birth. Did you know “Silent Night” has been translated into 44 languages and is often sung a cappella? Or that the song was sung simultaneously in English and German by troops during the Christmas truce of 1914? Just imagine being on that terrible battlefield and hearing the sweet sounds of this beloved song drifting out of the trenches. John McCutcheon did a haunting musical presentation of this incident and has a children’s book and CD called Christmas in the Trenches (CD J MCC Avoca) telling more about what happened that cold, frosty night. It reminds us that even in the worst circumstances, the spirit of Christmas lives in all of us.
May each of you have a warm, happy holiday season. Enjoy the music of the season, and remember our service personnel serving in the military all around the world.
Note: “Christmas in the Trenches” is also included on the albums "Water From Another Time" and "Live at Wolf Trap" (both CD MCC Main). Several years later, Garth Brooks recorded a song about the same incident.
When I was ten years old, my family moved to Germany for three years. That first Christmas in a faraway country was like a fairy tale in so many ways. The Christmas Fair at Frankfurt, the toys in the windows of the little German shops, the beautiful hand blown tree ornaments, and the luscious pasties all added joy to a holiday for a very homesick child. One memory of that first German Christmas will always be with me—the music of “Silent Night” sounding in a small German church, and my first experience of hearing the song sung in German. All of us have heard the story that in 1818 the organ in a small Austrian church was broken. The priest Joseph Mohr took the words to a carol he had written in 1816 to his friend Franz Gruber and asked him to create guitar music for the carol so the children would have a song to sing for the Christmas Eve service. Thus came about the legend of one of the most poignant of our Christmas songs. Actually, the organ probably was not broken, and Mohr may have just wanted a new carol for the children, but no one can deny the absolute beauty of the gentle carol about Jesus’ birth. Did you know “Silent Night” has been translated into 44 languages and is often sung a cappella? Or that the song was sung simultaneously in English and German by troops during the Christmas truce of 1914? Just imagine being on that terrible battlefield and hearing the sweet sounds of this beloved song drifting out of the trenches. John McCutcheon did a haunting musical presentation of this incident and has a children’s book and CD called Christmas in the Trenches (CD J MCC Avoca) telling more about what happened that cold, frosty night. It reminds us that even in the worst circumstances, the spirit of Christmas lives in all of us.
May each of you have a warm, happy holiday season. Enjoy the music of the season, and remember our service personnel serving in the military all around the world.
Note: “Christmas in the Trenches” is also included on the albums "Water From Another Time" and "Live at Wolf Trap" (both CD MCC Main). Several years later, Garth Brooks recorded a song about the same incident.
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