Memories of Music
By Brenda Hyde

I want to share with you memories of holiday music that were shared with me last year on Seeds of Knowledge during one of our memory contests. I hope they touch you also, and spark some of your own memories.

I am an only child, but both of my aunts had children my age. Instead of siblings, I had cousins. I used to love Christmas because we all got to go to Grandma's house and have fun all day! I remember us all sitting under her huge dining room table (for some odd reason) singing Christmas carols. Everyone in the house would sing, but we were in our own world under the table! One of my cousins has downs-syndrome, so our Christmas carols always sounded a bit unique, but that just made it more fun! Now we are all over twenty years old. There are no kids in the house anymore, except my six month old daughter. We all still gather at Grandma's house, but my cousins and I are almost strangers. I just hope my daughter can have memories like these. Now that she has been born, we have started some new family traditions. Now as soon as I give her some siblings, she can start having the fun that I did! ~Cynthia

My favorite holiday music memory is when I was about 9 years old. The air outside was perfect crisp and cool. My parents had the windows open. The smell of winter lingered throughout the house and gave all the feel so good feeling. My mother and father were winter cleaning like every year around Christmas, which made the house smell even better. While they were cleaning they always played music box Christmas songs and a Christmas album by the Salsoul Orchestra. I just laid under our Christmas tree watching the lights and ornaments glisten. I felt so content. Then my parents surprised me and we went to a Christmas parade and went to eat pizza. A very simple day really, but funny how the simple things can mean so much more. Now every Christmas with my new little family, I try to recreate that sense of contentment and happiness with my family, and hope that someday to my two little boys, these days will mean just as much. ~Jennifer

Without a doubt, my families favorite music memories would be when we had the chance to watch, listen and sing alongside the piano, while my Grandfather tickled the keys by ear. Now that he has passed, the piano sits upstairs untouched. We do have a cassette tape of him playing several songs that we like to listen to, but it's just not the same. He was a very talented musician, although he would have never admitted it. So, those are my most treasured memories of Christmas' past- and we all miss it terribly when the holidays roll in and out again. ~Laurie

My memory goes back to a few years ago at Christmas time. My Grandmother was in the hospital with pneumonia. As a family we spent Christmas Eve with her there. I remember looking around at all the poinsettias, and the white washed walls and thinking, this place doesn't have much holiday spirit. Just then we heard the most beautiful Christmas music coming down the halls. We looked out into the halls and there was an old blind man being pushed in a wheelchair. He was strumming with his fingers the most beautiful music on a harp. He kind of floated down the hall like an angel, adding Christmas spirit to the hospital. It made us all cry. It was so touching. So now every year I hear Christmas music with a few harp chords in it, I remember that man who made everyone's Christmas bright. And I remember my Grandma who passed away that Christmas Day. In her memory let the spirit of music play on. ~Heather

My favorite holiday music memory takes place during the Christmas Eve Communion service in the church where I grew up. At the end of the worship service, the music director and her husband sang "O Holy Night" while the light was passed from person to person. During this time the church lights were dimmed and the church slowly came alive with the soft glow of the candlelight. By the time they were finished singing, everyone was holding a lit candle. Then the congregation joined together in "Silent Night, Holy Night." The combination of candlelight and the whole congregation singing that beautiful carol is a memory I treasure to this day. ~Kathy

I love "Mary's Boy Child". When I was a child my parents had a single of this song sung by a Swedish couple. Their accents combined with the beautiful song made me play it over and over... usually singing at the top of my voice... to everyone else's initial amusement ... and subsequent covering of the ears!!! ~Karen

My most memorable music memory when we went to the Children's Home to visit my brother and even though he couldn't see me or hear me I still would sing all my favorite songs to him, and then sometimes I would hum them. I feel that in some small way that he knew I was there and knew what I was doing. I loved him so much. This year he has been dead 11 years in November. I now have a child of my own and I sing and hum to him all the time. I guess old habits are hard to break. ~Elayne

Whenever I hear the holiday favorite "Silver Bells" it brings a little smile to my face. In the fourth grade, around about 1952, I attended a parochial school. Every Christmas there was a Christmas show produced. Each class had a production number, ours was "Silver Bells". We were to wear our winter coats and hats, grouped around the stage, while Mary Lee and Edward (the stars) walked arm and arm around center stage. We would be holding large silver bells. Actually these were about 16" cardboard cutouts of a bell shape, covered with aluminum foil. When Sister Mary Evangeline said we need help making the stars, I shot my hand in the air and said "my Mother will do it she likes to make things" My Mother never let me forget that, there were 48 students in that class! ~Jane

I was in 6th grade in the late fifties in Southern California. About six of us performed "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" in front of the class. It was December and the weather was warm and sunny. We were all decked out in fur muffs and hats and coats, play-acting that it was cold! Everytime I hear this song I'm reminded of this fond memory from my childhood. ~Deborah

I recall the day I bought my first record. It was a red vinyl Christmas album with some chorus singing all the old favorites. My mother had taken me shopping and the store was done up for the holidays and felt so very exciting and alluring. I found this wonderful record which my mother let me buy with my allowance. On the way home the gray afternoon resolved itself into snow, and the lights were particularly beautiful, shining through that milky haze.

I listened to the album while I lay under the tree, letting the warm glow of those big colored lights wash over me and it seemed as if all the amazing things about Christmas - the lights, the tinsel and ornaments the snow falling softly just outside, being safe inside with my parents and my grandmother - were encapsulated in that music. As I've grown older my tastes have changed, of course, but a chorus singing a traditional "Silent Night" or "The First Noel" will always carry me right back to the time when I felt safe and loved, and I still believed in miracles. ~M.J. Clissold

Well, it used to be "O Holy Night, and maybe one day it will be again. You see, the last Christmas Eve service when I played flute for my church, I was to sing with the choir in the choir loft, then while another singer was doing a solo on "O Holy Night" I was supposed to walk up to the front of the loft very quietly so that I could follow him with a flute solo for the Offertory.

There were steps involved, and the choir loft was darkened during his solo. He began singing, and I began tiptoeing toward the front. Well, he got to "Fall on Your Knees" and I did. Down the stairs. Into the rail of the choir loft, which Thank God, held me. And then I still had to play my solo. So now my favorite Christmas song is "I'll Be Home for Christmas." ~Mary