So this is Christmas - Christmas Music & Poems

Christmas Music - how it was magical. We seemed to start playing Christmas carols and music a few weeks before Christmas. No CDs or tapes in the 1950s. Records - hard black ones - played on the record player that was the go. 

My grandfather loved Bing Crosby and Percy Faith so they figured prominently in the Christmas list. My mother was an accomplished pianist and we would have a sing-a-long around the piano. You know - White Christmas, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Oh Holy Night.

We also had The Nutcracker Suite, Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Handel's Messiah - these were in boxed sets of records in an album. Lovely music.

In later years we listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Christmas music and then Carols from the Kings College Choir in Cambridge.

My mother would read me Twas Night Before Christmas - you know the one - 

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there ....

This was read to me every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember - did you have this read to you as a child? I read it to my son when he was young and he read it to his daughters - a lovely tradition. I still have the illustrated book from my childhood.

Merry Christmas to all



Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) wrote the poem Twas the night before Christmas also called A Visit from St Nicholas in 1822.