Christmas Past

Music. It has blessed my life. And I love the music of the Christmas season, love to hear it and to sing it. Always I loved to sing the carols. We did that every year at home. My mom would play, and we would all sing.

Of course, I wanted to go caroling. When I was old enough to go to Mutual, I got my wish. We would gather at the church, climb into cars, and meet at the houses of friends, get out and sing, load up again, and drive to the next place and ooh and ah at the Christmas lights as we went. No snow to worry about. This was southern California.

The best times were the hayrides because we were out in the cold air, together with friends, singing carols through the town. And sitting on hay bales. Not sure why, but that made it so much better.

I grew up in Santa Monica, a beach town, so a hayride seems unlikely, but we did it. Our ward got a big flat-bed truck, stacked hay bales on it, and we kids piled on of a Christmas Eve. Then we met at someone's house at the end for hot cider or hot chocolate and cookies.

Always in our family, with our children, I wanted to go caroling on Christmas Eve, and usually we did. We made a decent little choir. My kids can sing, you know. As they grew, we grew from mostly melody to parts, with altos and tenors and more basses than one. (We'd always include "Far, Far Away On Judea's Plain," because we liked to hear our boys sing those low moving parts on the Glory to God refrain.)

Often we had snow to fuss with--Idaho is no beach town--and always we had to bundle up, but that was just part of it. When we got home, Daddy would light a fire. We'd peel off our coats and mittens and mufflers and caps, and have our own hot chocolate and a bowl of chili.

I love that we did it, love the memory of those times.