Christmas Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Top Country Christmas Hits

Eddy Arnold

From Joel Whitburn’s Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, Top Country Christmas Hits lists the peak positions these seasonal songs reached on the country charts.

If We Make It Through December– Merle Haggard, from 1973, four weeks at #1 CW, #28 pop

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Gene Autry with the Pinafores from 1949, one week at #1 CW, #1 pop for one week. It eventually sold eight million copies, second only to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. A new version of the song got to #70 pop in 1957.

Blue Christmas – Ernest Tubb from 1949, one week at #1 CW, #21 pop in 1950. “The song was originally recorded by American country singer, musician, and actor Doye O’Dell in 1948. It was popularized the following year in three separate recordings: one by Tubb, one by musical conductor and arranger Hugo Winterhalter and his orchestra and chorus, and one by bandleader Russ Morgan and his orchestra. Elvis Presley cemented the status of the song as a rock-and-roll holiday classic by recording it for his 1957 LP Elvis’ Christmas Album.

Snow Flake – Jim Reeves from 1966, three weeks at #2 CW, #66 pop

Jason Ritter’s grandfather

Christmas Carols By The Old Corral – Tex Ritter from 1945, one week at #2 CW. Maurice Woodeward Ritter was the star of c. 85 Hollywood westerns from 1935 to 1945. The late John Ritter was his son.

Thank God for Kids – Oak Ridge Boys from 1982, two weeks at #3 CW

Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) -Gene Autry from 1948, one week at number 4 CW. It reached #8 pop in 1948 and #24 pop in 1949

Frosty the Snowman – Gene Autry with the Cass County Boys and Carl Cotner’s Orchestra, from 1950, one week at number 4 CW. #7 pop in 1951, #23 pop in 1952

Will Santy Come to Shantytown – Eddy Arnold from 1949, one week at #5 CW

C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S – Eddy Arnold from 1949, three weeks at #7 CW, co-written by Arnold

Top R&B Christmas Hits

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

From Joel Whitburn’s Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, Top R&B Christmas Hits lists the peak positions these seasonal songs reached on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts.

White Christmas – Bing Crosby with the Ken Darby Singers, orchestra conducted by John Scott Trotter (Berlin) from 1942, #1 for three weeks RB, #1 for 11 weeks pop, from the film Holiday Inn. It was the “1947 Bing remake that piled up the majority of the title’s sales from its subsequent reissue throughout the decades on nearly all 78s, 45s, LPs, cassettes, and CDs.”

White Christmas – The Drifters from 1954, #2 for one week RB. Not only is this one of my favorite carols, it’s a wonderful video cartoon by Joshua Held. Featuring Bill Pinkney on lead bass and Clyde McPhatter on tenor.

Let’s Make Christmas, Baby – Amos Milburn from 1949, #3 for four weeks RB. Is it just me, or is this song blue, and I don’t mean sad?

The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) – Nat King Cole from 1946, #3 for three weeks RB, #3 pop. Every year, Mark Evanier shares a story about this song some know as “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…'”and Mel Tormé, who co-wrote the song

Merry Christmas, Baby – Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers with Charles Brown from 1947, #3 for two weeks RB. Co-writer Moore also is the guitarist; Brown does piano and vocals.

This is rhythm and blues?

The Chipmunk Song – The Chipmunks with David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian) from 1958, #5 for one week RB. #1 for weeks pop in 1958, then #41 pop in 1959, #45 pop in 1960, #39 pop in 1961 and #40 pop in 1962. My house had a copy of this single when I was growing up; the label was greenish.

(It’s Gonna Be A ) Lonely Christmas -The Orioles from 1949, #5 for one week RB

Faraway Blues (Xmas Blues) – Johnny Otis Orchestra with Little Esther and Mel Walker from 1950, #6 for two weeks RB. I wrote about Otis here back in 2008.

Silent Night (Christmas Hymn) – Sister Rosetta Tharpe with the Rosetta Gospel Singers from 1949, #6 for one week RB. She was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 as an early influence. “Sister Rosetta was the first guitar heroine of rock & roll. Her heartfelt gospel folksiness gave way to her roaring mastery of her trusty Gibson Les Paul Custom, which she wielded on a level that rivaled the best of her male contemporaries.”

Lonesome Christmas (Part 1 and 2) – Lowell Folson from 1950, #7 for one week RB

Lydster: making my life brighter

office chair

lamps My daughter has been making my life brighter for two decades, but right after Christmas, it wasn’t merely a metaphor. My wife and I had gone out to see a Saturday matinee. When we got back, she had put together three lamps for the living room that Santa had brought for me.

The front of the living room was too dark, so I couldn’t read the spines of my CDs. The last time my friends visited for a hearts game, the room was too dark for them, so this was a really important addition.

That she did it all by herself was quite remarkable. She had wanted to do this earlier, but her parents were always around, so she had to wait until we went to the movies.

Better seating

She also brought an office chair upstairs and put it together. I had one that broke down. Then, I used a stationary chair, which was more comfortable but less easy to get in and out of—the office chair swivels. Additionally, the new chair makes it much easier to clean the room. The hardest task was taking the old chair to the attic; I was not strong enough to do it myself.

During the cleaning – I picked up, and she removed stuff – we also had a wonderful conversation about life. We talked about the friends she had when she was younger. She still has some of them, and others have faded away, but she keeps track of many. We talked about our friend Bonnie, who she believes is the first significant person in her life to die. She doesn’t really remember my mother; the last time she saw her was when the daughter was five. Also, we discussed other relationships each of us have had.

We talked about the time we deconstructed the rotting shed in the backyard, one of the great joys I had working with her. It was a wonderful evening.

Lydster: Wall of boxes

miracle

When our daughter came home from college on December 20, we had a wall of boxes. The wall between the hallway and the living room was a bunch of presents we had received via UPS and the Postal Service.

The Amazon box contained a small Christmas tree we received from relatives. As you might be able to tell, the huge box contained an office chair, which, as it turned out, was for me.

The three similar boxes were packages with a bit of a story. UPS had been delivering certain deliveries to a CVS closing on Thursday, December 12th. I received a notice from UPS that the boxes had been delivered to that address on Wednesday, December 11th. So I went there, but the boxes weren’t there—hmm.

As it turned out, the boxes were delivered to the CVS in Stuyvesant Plaza. The next day, I took my cart and went to that CVS to get the three boxes much bigger than I had anticipated. They weighed about 20 kilograms apiece, but they were also bulky. Getting them home on a bus with a cart was a challenge, as only one box fit into the cart. The other two hung on the top, and it was an interesting balancing act. After I got them home, I was pretty much spent for the day.

In addition

The tall, thin box was a bed frame for our daughter’s room.

Lydia's stuff

Then, our daughter’s stuff was hanging out behind the wall of boxes. It included the things she brought home this month and some items from when she came home for Thanksgiving, so half of the living room was swallowed up.

Fortunately, she did yoeperson’s work and cleaned all this up by the evening of December 23, plus set up and decorate the tree with a friend. The big box in this picture is the same chair, and the little tree was the one in the Amazon box, also put together by our daughter.

The picture below was taken the morning of Christmas Eve. It’s not entirely tidy, but it’s considerably less chaotic than it had been only a few days before. It’s our little holiday miracle.

Christmas tree 2024

On the calendar: Ask Roger Anything

naming the weeks

Christmas and Kwanzaa are always right next to each other on the calendar. But this year, Chanukah (Hanukkah) “starts at nightfall on December 25, 2024, and ends with nightfall on January 2, 2025, beginning on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev, and lasting for eight days.” I happen to love holidays that have movable dates. Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Easter, and even the Monday holidays have different dates.

I spent more time than it was worth trying to answer a question somebody posted on Facebook. We have names for the months of the year and for the days of the week. Why don’t we have names for the weeks? It’s primarily because of the quirky nature of the calendar.

Even if we did name them, what would they be called? November 2nd to 8th could be election week, and November 22nd to 28th could be Thanksgiving week. But that doesn’t work for two good reasons. There are only 13 days between them, and they’re way too specifically American. Starting on the equinoxes or solstices is problematic because they aren’t the same worldwide.

I’ve concluded that weeks are just not meant to be named, although if you have some ideas, please let me know. It must be a system that applies to multiple countries, cultures, and religions or eschews them.

The ask

Whatever holiday you celebrate, you can provide a present: Ask Roger Anything. Roger loves this present. This is the time of the year when you let him know what you’re thinking about. You will likely ask him questions that he had not thought of asking himself.

Running a daily blog involves talking to oneself, so having you talk to him is much more enjoyable and far less schizophrenic.

Whatever you ask, I will endeavor to respond in the next several days. I’ll even promise to tell the truth; it may not be the WHOLE truth, but it’ll be pretty close.

You may leave your questions in this blog’s comments section, on my Facebook page (Roger Owen Green), or on my BlueSky page (roger green.bsky.social); always look for the duck.