We had a lot of snow last week and it really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas here. In my mind there should be snow at Christmas. I think I can thank Irving Berlin for that notion. During all the years we lived in L.A., I missed having snow at Christmas. There have been several years while living here that the ground was bare at Christmas and it just didn’t feel right. This year, unless we have some sort of freakish heat wave, we will have a white Christmas.
 |
| This morning. |
Christmas carols and songs are powerful music. They have the ability to evoke intense memories. I remember reading an account once of Polish soldiers during World War II who were held by the Germans and then later transported to a Soviet gulag in Siberia. At one point the prisoners were being transferred from one prison camp to another and were forced to walk through the snow, many of them suffering and near death. One of the prisoners realized it was Christmas and began to sing a Christmas carol. The other prisoners joined in and in the horrible darkness of that night they wept as they walked and sang, but at the same time it gave them hope to try and keep on living. I’ve felt the power Christmas songs and carols.
I remember the Christmas of 1979 when I was a missionary in Japan, almost at the end of my mission, sick with bronchitis and a racking cough. It was Wednesday, December 12th, our preparation day. We had the little kerosene heater on, but our apartment was very cold. The four of us were all dressed but lying in our futon beds trying to keep warm while writing letters home. We were taking turns singing Christmas songs. It was my turn and I sang “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” There was silence when I finished. Everyone had stopped writing. We were all huddled there under our blankets staring into space. Then Elder Tingey asked me to sing it again. I’d just started when the telephone rang and Elder Tingey answered it. It was the Mission President asking to speak to me. As I reached for the phone, my heart was pounding and my mind was racing. Phone calls like this usually meant a special transfer. I’d had phone calls like that before. I hated being transferred. And here it was just before Christmas and I was so sick and I had so little time left on my mission and I wanted to spend it there. The President chatted with me for a moment, asked me how things were going, how my companion was doing and then he said, “Elder Howe, is Christmas an important holiday for you and your family?” I said, yes. He then said that although I still had a month left on my mission, he needed someone to accompany an elder who was going home before Christmas and would I like to be that person. I hardly hesitated before answering yes. That was Wednesday and on Saturday I was home for Christmas with my family and it wasn’t just in my dreams. That was a very happy Christmas and every time I hear “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” that memory comes flooding into my mind.
Other songs and carols call up other memories. On the 5th of December 1984, my grandfather Rathfon died and I flew to Pennsylvania with my mother to attend the funeral leaving behind in L.A. my bride of seven months who was two months pregnant. I was gone for a week and when I returned, Stacey told me that for some reason the carol on one of our Christmas albums, an arrangement of “The First Noel” played by the Philadelphia Philharmonic conducted by Eugene Ormandy, made her miss me so much while I was gone. She would play that selection over and over and cry while she listened. Most likely it was hormones. Stacey is not an overly emotional person. But I still think of that when I play that album and that carol comes on. It makes me smile to think of how young we were, just starting our family on our first Christmas together.
We have a lot of Christmas music in our house – the soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” all of the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas albums, all of the Celtic Christmas CD’s, and the Winter Solstice CD’s, Christmas albums by the Judd’s, John Denver, Barbara Streisand, the Carpenters, Gladys Knight, King’s College Choir, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and others, Medieval Christmas music, Renaissance Christmas music, and Baroque Christmas music. Some of it is sacred music, some of it secular, but we love it all. We listen to it from the middle of November to New Years. I love it when the house is filled with Christmas music.
We had some live Christmas music last week, too. Thursday night was the Junior/Senior High School Christmas Concert. Hannah and Josiah are in the regular high school choir and the select choir, and Josiah is in the band and jazz band, and Hannah is in the guitar ensemble, so they were in most of the numbers performed. It was a nice concert.
The bulk of the week’s snow arrived yesterday and last night. Because of that, our High Council speakers called and canceled yesterday afternoon. They were driving down from Canandaigua and thought it was too dangerous to attempt it. That left us without speakers for Sacrament Meeting. Pres. Shillig decided it was best to cancel church altogether. Our branch covers a large area, most of Allegany County, New York, and part of Potter County, Pennsylvania, and it would also be dangerous for some of our members from areas farther out to try and drive in to Wellsville. So we are home today. It is still snowing as I write this, but not as heavily as before.
 |
| The front yard. |
 |
| Across the lower gardens. |
 |
| The house from the back. |
So what do we do on a Sunday without church? Everyone else slept in a little, but I was up at my usual time. I made a fire in the wood stove to warm the house. After everyone else finally crawled out of bed we had a late breakfast and read the scriptures together. We’re reading in 3 Nephi now, some of my favorite chapters of the Book of Mormon. I’ve had Christmas carols playing all morning. Josiah and Hannah are making lunch for us right now, beef stroganoff. It smells so good. Our afternoon will be filled with quiet activities – reading, doing family history, maybe a nap. This evening we’ll trudge through the snow to Shillig’s for our Sabbath Soiree.
 |
| Up the road to the Shillig's house. |
The week ahead will be full of fun as we draw closer to Christmas. Tomorrow we will get our Christmas tree and decorate it for Family Home Evening. On Thursday we will go to Hannah’s Christmas violin recital – all of us except for Josiah who is going caroling with the Boy Scouts. Friday is our last day of school until January 2nd. A week from today Miriam arrives home to spend the holidays with us. Things will be even merrier then.
P.S. There aren’t many photos this week. On Friday I left my camera in the pocket of my hoodie and it went through the wash. I tried to dry it out, but it is ruined. Since then, I’ve been using Hannah’s droid to take photos. It isn’t as easy to use and doesn’t take such good pictures.
