1. Finish the sentence: "I wish I ..." -- Basically, pretend you had up to three wishes to change something about you. A restriction is that cannot wish to change someone else. For example, you can say; "I wish I weighed 30 pounds less." But this wish is not for this meme; "I wish my spouse weighed 30 pounds less."I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener.
2. If you are reading this, you are "tagged" with this meme.
It is not necessary to send me any notice. I just wanna spread some wishes around.
I wish I were better at math and science.
I wish I had finished a degree... in just about anything.
Okay. Your turn.
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Mog is right. Some of my earliest childhood memories of Christmas are also of church... and the sacred music that accompanies it.
When I was young, my family went to church here. I was an angel in the Christmas pageant when I was about five or six. I remember my mother driving herself almost insane over making wings and a halo for me to wear. The snowy white cassock I wore. Lustily singing Away in a Manger. The Christmas story becoming real to me. Each child who participated in the pageant received a huge navel orange afterward. It was a luscious and precious gift.
We moved to Glen Ellyn, Illinois when I was ten, and attended this church until I graduated from high school. I was always active in youth choir, and loved the music of the season. For a little church (roughly 200 families), we had an outstanding music program.
When I graduated from junior high to high school, I was invited to join the adult choir. One year, our director was a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra chorus. That year, we did the entire Christmas Messiah, complete with orchestra (amateur adults and kids from my high school, both church members and volunteers) and soloists from the CSO itself. We practiced and practiced and practiced. And the results were fantastic. I can close my eyes and feel the entire congregation surge to its feet when the first notes of the Alleluia Chorus rang out, the joy that almost froze my throat as the music swelled.
I also participated in Madrigals at my high school. I loved the elaborate costumes. I still love the blending of four- to six-part accapella harmony. The Holly and the Ivy still gives me shivers of pleasure and rockets me back to the Christmases of my youth.
Christmas music still does this to me.
Forget the gifts. Remember the reason for the season.
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I almost got myself arrested taking this photo last night. I didn't know it was illegal to take a photo of a Christmas tree in a train station, did you?
Guess the security guard must have thought I was a terrierist or something...
Merry Christmas, indeed.
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1 comment:
I love the old Christmas hyms myself, too. And some of them are really timeless and incredible. Some of the crapola my church plays now, though, bites huge wiener.
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