A Christmas Soundtrack
What’s most interesting about Christmas memories to me is that when they appear, a master file seems to open up and reams of memory tend to stream simultaneously.
People in my family begin to discuss what we call the Longines around Thanksgiving. This happens every year. The Longines, to us, is a collection of four Christmas albums my mom bought, probably in 1966. From a bit of research, it looks like the Longines Symphonette Society sold T’was the Night Before Christmas through Readers Digest that year. I would suspect that it arrived at our house in St. Benedict, Pennsylvania via the US Mail. The albums, which eventually earned scratches and predictable skips, became our Christmas soundtrack.
I don’t know where the original set of Longines is these days—perhaps one of my sisters has it—but the songs still loom large, and even the order in which they play is embedded in my brain like a jingling Christmas alphabet. I put the albums on cassette one year when cassettes were still a thing, and then on CD. And now, to my everlasting good fortune, they’re available on YouTube. The four LPs largely feature Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, and every year Waring’s musical version of “T’was the Night Before Christmas” makes me cry. It’s worth noting that Mr. Waring was born in my neck of the woods, in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, in 1900.
The Longines collection is old-timey and perfect in my estimation: Bing Crosby singing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” The Columbus Boys Choir elevating “I Saw Three Ships” toward something angelic, and Leroy Anderson’s majestic arrangement of “March of the Kings.” Just a few days ago, my brother Lee mentioned the songs in a text message: “Listened to Longines today. Amazing how many of those songs make me emotional,” he said. I suppose what’s so amazing about it is that the music serves as a powerful link to our memories—or to a collective memory that pulses and breathes through our extended family.
Christmas memories, especially, are woven into the fabric of who we are because emotion is heightened at Christmas time. Christmas memories are vivid and not so run-of-the-mill. What’s most interesting about Christmas memories to me is that when they appear, a master file seems to open up and reams of memory tend to stream simultaneously. I think that’s precisely what happens. That is, the feeling evoked by a song envelopes several things at once, so lots of Christmases pop into your head while Bing Crosby croons, or while Fred Waring’s choir shouts about clattering hooves.
Where do those memories come from, and why are they so intricately connected to music? For my mom and dad, Christmas was never about presents. Instead, it was about a series of events and activities. On our list of Christmas priorities, gifts were probably in last place. The things we did (and do) together form a wondrous alloy that is entirely singular. I wrote in this same space two years ago about my ongoing belief in Santa Claus. I know that sounds silly—I’m a grown man—but my mom and dad offered plenty of reasons to believe in the Christmas spirit, which is always alive in Santa Claus. So yes, I believe in Santa.
On one level, specific childhood memories matter to the life of that Christmas spirit: decorating our church (St. Stanislaus Kostka) in the weeks before Christmas every year, singing Polish carols in that same church, and the silent mysteries of Midnight Mass. Our traditional Polish Christmas Eve supper, Wigilia, matters, too—the twelve meatless dishes that no one seems to like. It’s funny, for example, that my brother Jack eats one mushroom every year—you must have a bite of every dish: that’s the tradition.
To a man (or woman), we claim to hate the strange mixture of prunes and potatoes, or sauerkraut and lima beans, but the truth of the matter is that all of us—every Stanek large and small who gathers around the Christmas Eve table—loves every dish because we love what the event represents. At any rate, I assume that the menu was created long ago in a Polish village called Maruszyna, and that Christmas Eve supper there included whatever was available for poor Gorals in southern Poland.
My dad insisted that we continue that tradition, not that any of us minded. Each year, my mom cooked, and he served, and each year there were tears and stifled sobs as Leo stuffed hay under the tablecloth and said a prayer in Polish. The hay was there so baby Jesus could lie in the center of the table. The tears were of a good variety, triggered by mysterious attachments we couldn’t articulate.
My mom and dad are both gone now, but we’ll continue the tradition, and a pile of us will gather around tables at my brother Lee’s house at 5PM on December 24th. By tradition, dinner is supposed to start when the first star becomes visible. It will commence with the Christmas wafer, Oplatki, and the first task is to dip a small chunk of the wafer in honey and serve it with Christmas greetings to everyone at the table. In the old days at my grandmother’s house, this was a solemn undertaking. In the 21st Century, the solemnity lies in laughter and shouts because laughter is a prayer, too.
Mostly, the solemnity lies in the doing, continuing something old because it holds a larger meaning, and because it connects us to the original makers of the feast, my mom and dad. I suppose I find a certain kind of solemnity in the Longines Christmas music, too, and so does my brother Lee, and so do certain others in our larger family; those records belonged to my mother, and maybe she cried when “T’was the Night Before Christmas” came on.
I’ve thought a lot about my brother Lee this week. Christmas traditions are important to all of us, I think, but he’s become a willing anchor, hosting and cooking for the thing that brings us together every Christmas, and I might suggest that he’s placed more importance on it than any of us because he’s now the maker of the feast. It’s a feast that’s necessary, and it’s a big job, so presenting it is a great service.
I was glad when he texted me about the Longines the other day, glad that I wasn’t the only one connected to songs from our past. The songs, like each Christmas Eve supper, are perfect in their representation of the love that lies at the root of all Christmas memories. Even a family that is imperfect can enjoy and revel in a perfect mystical moment where all is right with the world. We can further inform our memories; we can tuck this Christmas away with other Christmases and know that it’s there to latch on to at any moment when we need the solemn comfort that lies in people who aren’t physically present. We can find relief in the idea that the songs and traditions bring those people home, even if it’s just for a fleeting moment. And it’s okay if, in that moment, you shed a tear or two. No one will judge you; they might be crying, too.