Christmas Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Lydster: unsent photo

Ho, ho, ho!

Here’s the story of the unsent photo.

I’ve stated many times that one of the primary reasons I started blogging was because I was terrible at keeping track of my daughter’s first couple of years in that baby book that almost every parent is gifted, including us. You know, the date of the first step, the first tooth. I do recall that she began cruising before she reached eight months; that was a term I had never heard before becoming a parent.

My wife and I were also awful at sending out Christmas cards. But we figured: Hey, we have a new baby! Surely, this will be the opportunity to send out cards with the information about our addition to the family.

Moreover, they were taking pictures at my house of worship for the church directory. This was the perfect time to take advantage of this confluence.

Seasonal failure

And yet… and yet, somehow we never really sent this photo and card, probably taken in October or November of her first year, out for Christmas, even though the cards were printed in plenty of time. So basically, we sucked at sending out Christmas cards even when we should have been highly motivated. A few family members MAY have gotten the picture, although I am not at all certain.

In fact, we sent out Christmas cards in either 2022 or 2023, quite possibly for the first time as a family, and our daughter was already an adult by that point.

So consider this an extremely belated Merry Christmas from us, new parents, and our little child, who’s not so little anymore.

The 24 Dec main meal

Christmas eve pancakes 2025

Finally, here’s our Christmas Eve linner or dunch or sunch or lupper, or whatever you eat at c 3:45 pm when you have to be at church at 6 p.m. The daughter designed pancakes with blueberry eyes and a raspberry nose. The bacon antlers were skipped on her meal.

The candy cane was alternating banana and strawberry slices.

the Ballad of the Brown King

Langston Hughes

The cantata The Ballad of the Brown King (1954) is an important work, James Bennett II from New York Public Radio WQXR posits: “Margaret Bonds’ multi-part choral work, for which she collaborated with poet Langston Hughes, is an attempt to recapture the titular brownness that has art-historically been associated with one of the biggest holidays of one of the world’s biggest religions.

“Like the worlds in which the Nativity story exists, there is no singular style that dominates Bonds’s work; over the course of about 25 minutes, there’s the western orchestra’s pastoral serenity alongside gospel and black-and-bluesy American folk traditions.”

But it was not a straight line to success. From John Michael Cooper here: “Bonds and Hughes then shelved the cantata despite this impact, but as the Freedom movement gained headway in the early 1960s, they returned to it – revising it, adding two movements, and energetically promoting it in advance of the performance.

“The premiere of the reworked version took place, in a now-lost version employing piano-duet accompaniment, to a packed house in a concert produced by the Emergency Committee for the Southern Freedom Struggle on Sunday, 11 December 1960, at the Harlem YWCA at 50th St. and 8th Ave; the work was dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “

From Wikipedia: “A new orchestration of the piece by conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather was recorded in 2018 by the Dessoff Choirs and released on November 1, 2019. Margaret Bonds’s original orchestration is unpublished and has never been recorded.

Balthazar

“Ballad focuses on one of the Three Kings from the story of the birth of Jesus. Hughes chose the African king, Balthazar, as a way to ‘reinforce the image of African participation in the Nativity story.'”

Here is The Ballad of the Brown King:

The Dessoff Orchestra and The Dessoff Choirs

The Chapel Hill Chorus – ‘Wint’ry Light’ 12/15/24

UUCSR Choir and Soloists with The Orchestra at Shelter Rock, Manhasset, NY, with remarks

Soul Christmas songs

What Christmas Means To Me

Some soul Christmas songs, most NOT from the album pictured.

Louisiana Christmas Day – Aaron Neville, from Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas (1993)

Merry Christmas, Baby – Charles Brown (1968).

Little Drummer Boy – Lou Rawls (1967).

Silver Bells – Earl Grant (1969). This needs more airplay.

You’re All I Want For Christmas – Brook Benton (1963)

Mary’s Boy Child – Harry Belafonte, #12 in 1956. The remarkable Jester Hairston, who had a fascinating life as a composer and actor, wrote the song.

‘Zat You, Santa Claus? – Louis Armstrong, The Commanders

Every Valley Shall Be Exalted – Lizz Lee & Chris Willis & Mike E. from Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration (1992)

Little Drummer Boy (African Tribal Version) – Alex Boye’ ft. Genesis Choir

A Very Special Christmas

There were several of these collections to help the Special Olympics.

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Whitney Houston (1987)

Christmas in Hollis – Run-D.M.C. (1987) The last time I took the Long Island Railroad, I noticed the Hollis, Queens stop.

Merry Christmas, Baby – Charles Brown, Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie had both Charles Brown and Ruth Brown on her subsequent tour. (1992)

Motown

Several Motown artists released Christmas albums: the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and the Temptations. They appeared on a couple of compilations, one of which I own on vinyl.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer—The Temptations (1971).

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder (1967). One of my top five favorite seasonal songs.

Stax

I think I favored the Stax Christmas music over Motown because it was less familiar. All of these I found on one of my STAX/Volt box sets.

Jingle Bells – Booker T. & The MGs (1967)

Winter Snow -Booker T. & The MGs. (c 1967) Isaac Hayes wrote this melancholy tune.

Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas – The Staple Singers (1973). . Besides the vocals, it’s a bit melancholy, which is why I like it.

The Mistletoe and Me – Issac Hayes (1970)

Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday – William Bell (1967). It was a minor RB hit

How Christmas Songs Have Evolved

nostalgic, joyous, and even romantic

Over a decade ago, Alice Zhao wrote, How Christmas Songs Have Evolved Over Time. More recently, I saw a chart that said essentially the same thing: most popular Christmas songs were written before 1980, Mariah Carey notwithstanding.

Cole Haddon wrote in his 5AM StoryTalk: “I have zero mathematical evidence to support this, but I’d wager 99% of the Christmas songs we listen to every season were composed between 1800 and 1970. What happened to kill the Christmas song? Was it the death of the big band era and the songwriters who fueled it, and the musicals centered around its superstar performers? Was it the death of relentless optimism in the West that succeeded World War II? “

He wanted his readers to muse on the prompt: What makes a great Christmas song anymore?

These songs are from the last season or two:

Merry Christmas Darling – Rebecca Jade. I’ve seen her sing live a half dozen times!

Christmas In The City – Pentatonix

Merry Christmas – Ed Sheeran & Elton John, which I didn’t know about until Haddon referenced it. It “manages to be nostalgic, joyous, and even romantic as it subtly calls for us to come together and be grateful for surviving a global pandemic. I adore it.”

Winter Wonderland – Ellen, Charlotte, and Melisa. Ellen, the bass player, has a YouTube channel showcasing her skills, dating back to when she was nine.

The rest are earlier.

The Holly and the Ivy – Steeleye Span. I bought a Span box set during COVID.

Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy – Bing Crosby/David Bowie. Unless you’re of a certain age, you might not realize how bizarre this 1977 pairing was. And by the time the program aired, Bing had been deceased for over a month.

O Tannebaum – Nat King Cole. My mother’s favorite singer, singing in German!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Tony Bennett. Tony was one of the great comeback stories.

Sleigh Ride – Ella Fitzgerald. I have a CD with this song

O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Whitney Houston. Backed by a one-man group (Mervyn Warren from Take 6)

We Need A Little Christmas – Angela Landsbury, from the Broadway musical Mame.

Children, Go Where I Send Thee – Natalie Merchant

What Child Is This – Vanessa Williams

The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet. The last three songs are from A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3 (1997), Vol. 2 (1992), and Vol. 1 (1987), respectively.

Check out Kelly’s A Daily Dose of Christmas and Coverville 1561: A Very Coverville Christmas Volume 21

Also, Mark Evanier has seasonal content most every day this month, starting with My Simple Christmas Wish by Christine Pedi.

Holiday tradition

Playing Santa Does Strange Things to a Man. What It Did to Bob Rutan Was Even Stranger.

Damn it, Chevrolet, you’re not supposed to make me cry … again …

Sixty Years Ago, When Instruments Were Played in Space for the First Time, It Was ‘Jingle Bells’ All the Way. Astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra delighted mission control with their rendition of the Christmas classic.

The CPKC Holiday Train 2025 crossing at the Cohoes-Waterford Bridge

Frank Sinatra and Christmas

Rat Pack

Ever since I bought The Complete Capitol Singles Collection, “a compact disc box set, released on Capitol Records in 1996,” I’ve associated Frank Sinatra and Christmas.

In December, I’d play my Sinatra albums interspersed with my holiday CDs. The set includes two pairs of singles, including White Christmas (Irving Berlin), which is different from his Columbia version; two different takes of The Christmas Waltz (Cahn, Styne); and Mistletoe and Holly (Hank Sanicola, Sinatra, Stanford).

Here’s Frank’s A Jolly Christmas album, a 1957 Capitol album that went to #18 on the pop charts and then charted on the Christmas charts from 1962 through 1967.

And here’s a Columbia album from around 1948, though the playlist doesn’t match my reference sources.

There’s a Christmas with the Rat Pack album with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., released in 2002, though the recordings are from 1954-1970. Some of the recordings are live.

This Frank Sinatra Christmas Songs playlist 2024 runs for two hours and almost certainly has some overlap. You will find Sinatra’s seasonal music repackaged frequently.

Kelly links to some Frank: Love’s Been Good to Me, plus some other items that are not currently available, unfortunately.

Centennial plus ten

This is the 110th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth. I had a late friend who shared his birthday but hated the singer for some reason, probably because of his Chairman of the Board persona rather than the music. I grew to appreciate him over time.

In addition to the Capitol box set, I have a couple of his Columbia V-discs, a box set on his Warner Brothers imprint on Reprise Records, two duet albums, and a couple of other collections, most recently Watertown.