Always treasure simple pleasures.
That’s the handwritten inscription on one of the first gifts I received from my late wife, Amy. The adage was pasted—along with the photo of an orangutan holding a flower—on a wooden plaque.
The gift was handcrafted, which amplified its value. Amy had to ponder what the plaque should say. And choose the right picture. And paste it all together. And anticipate whether her new boyfriend would like it.
I did.
We were 16 years old and had been dating for just a few months. Amy had already shared a nugget of wisdom that served us well for the next 43 years as we raised a family and built a business.
I’ve always appreciated the simpler pleasures of the Christmas season.
Not so much the anxiety of materialism.
I wasn’t alive during the age when Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters filled the airwaves—and scratchy vinyl disks—with Christmas music that was alive with the backing of big bands, but it always seemed to me that it was a simpler time.
Even if it wasn’t.
Maybe I just watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Holiday Inn” too often.
But I concluded a handful of years ago that I preferred to hear innocent, festive songs, like “Silver Bells” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” rather than the depressing, repetitive laments of loneliness and broken relationships to which the 24-hour holiday radio stations torturously subject their audience.
I appreciate mixing in an occasional rendition of “I’ll be Home for Christmas” on a playlist with “Silent Night” and an anticipatory song about the arrival of a big fat man with a long white beard. The perspective of a soldier separated from his family by war should be acknowledged and remembered—during World War II and today.
But the hourly Prozac-promoting rotation of “Last Christmas”—not just one, but numerous versions—and the overplayed Eagles’ rendition of “Please Come Home for Christmas” couldn’t be more contrary to the comfort and joy of the holidays. When the only tune I looked forward to hearing was the jingle for C.F. Burger Creamery, it was time to shut off the radio.
By the way, the original version of “Please Come Home for Christmas,” by Charles Brown, began, “bells will be ringing the glad, glad news.” The Eagles, in mainstream holiday fashion, altered the line to emphasize the “sad, sad news.”
Not surprisingly, “Christmassy” radio stations generally have banished any songs that remotely reflect the actual reason that Christmas is celebrated.
Among my fondest Christmas memories is taking our young boys to Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) concerts. In 2000, the group was just emerging on the national scene. Unlike today’s impersonal concerts that are played before 20,000 attendees in huge arenas, the show that year was in the more intimate venue of Cleveland’s historic Palace Theater. Afterward, the TSO performers took the time to hang out in the lobby and mingle with their fans.
Paul O’Neill, the late leader of the group, apparently was impressed that Amy and I brought our young boys to enjoy his music.
He signed one of their admission tickets, “Great taste in music. Better taste in parents.”
The Christmas season has lost its luster since Amy passed in 2021.
But I feel it coming back a little. Maybe time is the healer.
Most likely it was the arrival of my grandson, Watson, last December.
This Christmas season hadn’t really started yet when my son sent a short video from Dollywood a couple weeks before Thanksgiving Day. My daughter-in-law sat with Watson before Santa’s shuttered window and knocked to see whether the old man was home.
He was.
Santa opened the shutter and produced a scroll. It was his “nice list.”
Rolling it open, Santa asked, “Would you care to see whether your name is on there?”
It was.
Watson made the list.
Right between two good kids named Brandon and Crue.
Watson is too young to know who Santa Claus is. At least I assume so.
But his glowing eyes and smile suggested that he knew that something special was happening.
It was.
His mom and dad were exposing him to the magic we all want our kids to feel, whatever holidays and events we celebrate.
Christmas is for kids.
But adults should treasure those simple pleasures.
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