Many of us have fond memories of Christmas past, especially when we were children. I have two that I want to share. One is of my two uncles competing to see who could toss icicles to the top of the ceiling high Christmas tree. (These were to old-fashioned foil tinsel kind; you can't do this with the modern ones. )
The other memory is of the extended family gathering on Christmas Eve, or the next night, to enjoy singing around the piano and sharing Christmas goodies. While the cookies, fruit cake, (Grandma's famous butterless-eggless-milkless cake, a war time recipe that would cost an arm and a leg to make today) and punch were good to have, it was the music that meant the most to me over the years.
We had a stack of old hymnals, and two aunties who took turns playing the piano for us. We sang four-part harmony all evening, starting at the beginning of the hymnal and singing our way through all the favorites, especially the Christmas carols and hymns. If the pianist didn't know a particular hymn, she would play the opening notes and we would sing acapella. We sang until we ran out of hymns, lost our voices, or the aunties got too tired to play.
I miss that celebration and the extended family gathering. However, the memories are fresh and the music is still meaningful to me. I love all the music of the season, especially the old familiar carols and hymns sung in that old-fashioned four part harmony.
Four-part harmony? There's a lesson in there somewhere. The different voices blending together made something beautiful to experience. When we as a people, a wider community or nation can learn to blend our voices in such a way as to create a greater harmony, how much more beautiful our world will be.
