Advent Calendar - December 21 - Christmas Music, Madness Monday

This post is a joint post for the Genea Advent Calendar, and Madness Monday [see the end of this post for what drives me "Mad"!]




What songs did your family listen to during Christmas? Did you ever go caroling? Did you have a favorite song?
(Note: perhaps there is a particular Christmas song that drives you mad?)

We mainly listened to traditional Christmas carols during the season. Although the family, in general, listened to a lot of Country singers performing the songs. Back then we didn’t have cassette tapes, or 8-tracks, or CD’s. We listened either to the radio, or to record albums. [I am still intrigued when I pass a music shop and see them listing vinyl – not the old 78’s even – as antique recordings! And yes, I owned both!!!]

Oh, my yes, we went caroling nearly every year when I was growing up, until I was married! Sometimes just 3 or 4 of us from the neighborhood. But for the most part, we went as a rather large group. Sometimes from house to house. And sometimes from nursing facility to nursing facility [nursing homes, retirement homes, even the hospital]. And almost always, following an evening singing in the cold, we would end up back at someone’s house where we would be treated to hot-chocolate and Christmas cookies. We would be exhausted, but we were always jubilant!

My favorite Christmas song has always been, as far back as I can remember, “Stille Nacht”, the German rendition of “Silent Night”. [Many people forget that it was written in this language, and so accommodates the language even better than English!] My Grandpa Dreher used to sing it to me in his deep baritone voice. It didn’t have to be Christmas for me to request him to sing it to me, either! He’d take me upon his knee, and hold me close as he sang the beautiful words! I suppose it will be my favorite Christmas carol all my life!

Is there a particular Christmas song that drives me MAD? You betcha!

I don’t know why, because everyone else just cracks up over it, but I despise “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”. Maybe because the very thought of a drunken Grandma, falling down in the snow and being run over by one of Santa’s little magical sleigh-bearers is somehow sacrilegious to my Christmas being! Besides, everyone knows that all eight of those little reindeer [Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder and Blitzen] and even the old Rudolph himself, would stop to render any Grandma aid if they found her on the ground! I’ve often wondered why they haven’t filed a slander suit against the writer of that particular piece of yuletide song!