THE MUSIC OF CHRISTMAS (Nursing Home Life, part 14)

“Mostly Christmas makes me feel” –Linnea Good Earlier on the blog I made a short list of songs I love to wallow by. But now that Christmas is coming, there are so many more songs. And what better time can there be for wallowing in sadness, nostalgia, joy and completely inexplicable reactions? It’s a musical bonanza, two of my best Christmas weeping songs presented consecutively on a single album, Winter Song by Sarah McLachlan. How magically transforming it is to lubricate the tear ducts with Sarah’s version of Joni Mitchell’s River, in preparation for the heart-breaking torrent of McLachlan’s own Winter Song! I could be tapping my toes to Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. In fact, I do tap my toes when it comes on the radio, but when I want to play Christmas music, I Hear myself asking Siri to play Winter Song. It’s not nostalgia that draws me in, it’s the connection to feelings of sadness and loss, the self-indulgent tug toward a moment of melancholy against a backdrop of comfort and joy. . If, like me, you are a closet whiner,sad songs are the perfect outlet for expression. Fortunately, Christmas offers a wide selection of choices with something to meet every emotional need. For example, there’s Silent Night, the song that still holds the record as my biggest crying song. The whole thing started some time in my thirties. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But every Christmas, I’d be at a concert or a church service and we’d start singing Silent Night. Before we got to sleeping in heavenly peace the beauty of the thing would overwhelm me. The rest of the singers would have to finish singing without me. I’d be sniffling, wiping tears, my throat stretched tighter than a drum. No more singing from me. No particular sadness in it. Here was nostalgia at its most pervasive. Each year that song would start, and I’d remember how I cried last year. The memory would set my glands to drizzling. The first cure for the problem came to me quite accidentally the year I volunteered to play the piano at the late church service on Christmas Eve. The stage was set for the worst of my crying. Near the end of the service the congregation would begin to sing Silent Night. They would pick up the tall candles they had been given when they entered the church. The lights would go down and the first candle would be lit. Then each person would light their candle from the candle of the person next to them. The beauty of the thing would overwhelm me. Normally I’d be a wet rag by the time all the candles were lit and the third verse was sung. But this time I was the musician and everyone was counting on me. The burden of responsibility calmed my nerves. It was a Christmas miracle! All the beauty and no tears from me. I played in heavenly peace. It worked, and I had high hopes for singing that song in the future. But it only worked when I played the piano for other singers. If I didn’t play, I still cried. Then came the second cure. It was the year when another pianist volunteered to play the late service. Members of my family were visiting that night. I packed my purse with Kleenex and invited them to join David and me. Each of us picked up a candle as we entered the church. Then, near the end of the service, Carla played the first notes of Silent Night. As the peaceful music began, my father, summoning the louder voice of a man who has forgotten his hearing aid, turned his candle toward my sister. “Where is your candle?” he boomed. “I don’t know,” she whispered. All was still calm at that point. “Where’s your candle?” he boomed more loudly, thinking perhaps she had not heard him. “I don’t know,’ she shouted back. We’d made it to Holy infant so tender and mild. Then began a scurrying search of the floor for the missing candle. By now we were at the second Silent night, Holy night. Quick as a flash, while shepherds quaked at the sight, I handed my candle to my father to give to my sister. “This is an extra one,” I shouted, hoping only to have to say it once, particularly because it was a lie. I wanted—no, needed—him to be quiet. At that point, all thoughts of crying had left me. I felt like a teen-ager, the way you do when you want to pretend that these people are weird strangers who just happened to cross your path. But my father is a conscientious man. That evening he was bent on making sure that everyone was included. “Where’s your candle?” he asked, glancing at my now empty hand. We had made it to the third Silent Night. At this point, my thoughts turned from utter embarrassment to sympathy for my poor David, the long-suffering man who had, in all innocence, married into this family. His only possible escape could come with a messy expensive divorce, and I just didn’t think he was up to it. I started breathing deeply, lest I should develop a penchant for fainting. I shook my head vehemently at David, who was offering to hand me his candle. “You keep it,” I whispered as loudly as I could. I didn’t trust myself to hold a fire in my trembling hand. Things settled down a bit then. My father stopped worrying about my candle. All was calm, until we got to the end of the song. We blew out our candles and then sat down. There was a snap! There was a soft cry of surprise. There was no point trying to pretend the noise wasn’t caused by my family. It was my sister, jumping up to retrieve the two halves of an unburned candle upon which she had just sat. Apparently it had been on her chair all along. Mercifully the service promised to end. The piano struck the first chords of Joy To The World. Beside me stood David, whom I now noticed, was taking deep breaths in a vain attempt to suppress fits of laughter. Of course the laughing attack spread to me, and then to others nearby, the way a wildfire might spread if you weren’t careful with a candle. Since then I have become philosophical and more than a little curious about the strange relationship between emotions and songs. Christmases come and Christmases go. Each holiday season brings its songs and its feelings. This year I’m choosing Sarah McLachlan for the melancholy effect. That said, I expect to hear Joy To The World, which will likely cause me to break out in a broad smile. And when I’m asked to sing Silent Night, I’ll do my best not to laugh. But I might not succeed in that.