I love Christmas. I always have. I think I've mentioned that before (and since a quick check reveals that I've written 18 posts to date with the label Christmas, I expect I have mentioned it more than once). And one of the best things about Christmas is the music. I love Christmas music. I love it all.
I love the familiar favourites about Santa and snowmen and reindeer and children, rehashed in scores of ways, played over wobbly sound systems in shops, abused as the background music to adverts on tv, warbled by children in school concerts.
I love the jolly ancient songs about wassailing. They make me think of our medieval forbears cheering themselves in the dark, dank, muddy, winter days, with a wassail bowl and a hog roast and a roaring fire. (Oh, thank heavens for central heating, fast food and shopping malls.)
I love carols, careful carriers of theological truths down the ages before most people could read and write. I used to love my 12" black vinyl record of carols, with a picture of snow-laden Christmas trees on the front. (I wonder if I still have it somewhere?) I love all those David Willcocks arrangements from Carols for Choirs. What a genius that man was. My favourite Christmas hymn is Of the Father's Love Begotten, which we had at our wedding (in January, not quite Christmas, but still Epiphany and therefore seasonal). It's based on a hymn written in the 4th century. It's old.
I love the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge on Christmas Eve. I sat and listened to it with my grandmother in the last month of her life in 1983. I had just got a fancy radio/cassette player which I was rather pleased with - it had two built-in speakers, taking me to the lofty heights of stereo sophistication. She needed an oxygen mask on during parts of the service. It's one of my loveliest memories.
I love modern classics, All I want for Christmas is You, Santa Baby, Let it Snow, War is Over, Slade's So Here It Is - all of them. My favourite in this category is Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime. There's something about that song that just gets me between the ribs.
I love mystic-sounding madrigals on CDs which have the word Celtic in the title, with pictures on the front of people in hooded garb, gazing mysteriously across misty landscapes. (Incidentally, don't you think the current iPod generation misses out, with downloadable music which has no need of album covers?)
I even love the offensively vacuous Kidz Compilationz CDs we have. I'm going to have to use the word 'festive' at this point. You know the kind. Lots of jingles and jangles and a good strong beat, where Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer morphs into Ding Dong Merrily on High which segues into We Wish You a Merry Christmas which blends into Away in a Manger which transmutes into Deck the Halls. We have one version in which they sing 'bows' of holly instead of 'boughs'. Falala-lala to that.
Ah yes. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the music. I love it all. Well... Almost all...
NB I've sent this post to Notes from Home for her Christmas Carnival. If you're writing about Christmas, why don't you join in too?
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Showing posts with label grandparents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grandparents. Show all posts
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Armed Police
Husband battled it out with Armed Police all week-end. Although he had the initial advantage of being able to vote for himself, what could one man do against so many, and with weapons? Armed Police have won the right to have their story told (but since Shadowy Husband generated so much interest, I’ll tell his too – next time).
As with so many good stories, the key to the Armed Police story is timing. We had been in the Midwest for 6 months. Our first set of visitors arrived – Granny and Grandad. They were jet-lagged, but in remarkably good shape, and got up for breakfast on their first morning. Husband had taken the boys to school on his way to work; the rest of us were sitting at the table in the dining room which is at the front of the house.
I saw two policemen, with rifles pointing forwards at the ready, gesturing to each other as they ran across the front lawn. I had that initial expat reaction: ooh, it feels just like I’m in a movie (so many things in the early days when you move abroad trigger that reaction). My other reaction, which can only be described as touchingly and Britishly naïve, was to think that there must be a vicious dog on the loose – why else would they have their rifles out?
At this point, like all good stories, there is a random amusing detail. There was a couple going for a walk. This is extraordinary enough in America, although we do live in quite a walky neighborhood. It’s all very serious, though. People don’t just go out of their front doors and walk. They have proper sporty walking gear on, bounce along purposefully, and monitor their heart-rates as they go. But this couple wasn’t like that. They were in ordinary clothes, sauntering along. No-one saunters as they walk here. But the best detail was this: the man was wearing a woolly bobble hat. In May (we’re talking 70 degrees plus).
“Um” I said to Granny and Grandad, “there seem to be policemen with guns on our front lawn”.
By this time, I was at the window watching the police, and watching the bobble hat couple who had stopped and were watching the police, and trying to spot the vicious dog. Grandad joined me, and we stood there, slightly bemused by the whole scene. It dawned on me that what we were watching might not develop into a very good situation – the lack of an obvious dog was ringing alarm bells by now.
I suggested we take 3-yo down to the basement, realising I didn’t want her to be around to see what might transpire, or even get caught up in it. She was young enough not to question the adults’ sudden desire for a game of air hockey at this early hour, and we all went downstairs. Grandad’s curiosity kept getting the better of him, and he sneaked up from time to time to see what was happening.
The story ends with 5 police cars parked in the street, and a whole huddle of policemen, and a man being put in one of the cars and driven away. I later found out that the man, who wasn’t armed, was burgling the house two doors up from us. He’d been watching the house, knew the times that the owners left in the morning, but, unluckily for him, the day he chose to do the burglary, one of the owners had forgotten something, realized on the way to work, returned home, became suspicious when he saw a strange car in the drive, and called the police.
What a great start to Granny and Grandad’s visit! I like to think we gave them something to tell the folks back home. Less than 24 hours in America, in a neighbourhood which we’d been telling them was nice and safe, and a drama unfolds before their very eyes involving armed police on the front lawn! Now if that didn’t confirm all their preconceptions of life in America, I don’t know what would (well, I suppose if we’d been having Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coke for breakfast, that would have helped). If it had happened the previous morning, we’d have missed the whole thing. We were only having breakfast in the dining room instead of the kitchen because of our visitors, and from the kitchen window, which looks out to the back, we’d have seen nothing. Timing, you see.
The thing I haven’t figured out is this. What was the point of the man in the bobble hat in the story? Was he just an extra, sent along by the movie-impressions people to add a bit of local color? Was he the Chief of Police, checking up on his men, incognito? Was he some kind of guardian angel, sent to make sure no-one got hurt in any crossfire? Was he a bobble hat salesman?
Next time: Shadowy Husband. The time after that: my reflections on America’s gun culture.
As with so many good stories, the key to the Armed Police story is timing. We had been in the Midwest for 6 months. Our first set of visitors arrived – Granny and Grandad. They were jet-lagged, but in remarkably good shape, and got up for breakfast on their first morning. Husband had taken the boys to school on his way to work; the rest of us were sitting at the table in the dining room which is at the front of the house.
I saw two policemen, with rifles pointing forwards at the ready, gesturing to each other as they ran across the front lawn. I had that initial expat reaction: ooh, it feels just like I’m in a movie (so many things in the early days when you move abroad trigger that reaction). My other reaction, which can only be described as touchingly and Britishly naïve, was to think that there must be a vicious dog on the loose – why else would they have their rifles out?
At this point, like all good stories, there is a random amusing detail. There was a couple going for a walk. This is extraordinary enough in America, although we do live in quite a walky neighborhood. It’s all very serious, though. People don’t just go out of their front doors and walk. They have proper sporty walking gear on, bounce along purposefully, and monitor their heart-rates as they go. But this couple wasn’t like that. They were in ordinary clothes, sauntering along. No-one saunters as they walk here. But the best detail was this: the man was wearing a woolly bobble hat. In May (we’re talking 70 degrees plus).
“Um” I said to Granny and Grandad, “there seem to be policemen with guns on our front lawn”.
By this time, I was at the window watching the police, and watching the bobble hat couple who had stopped and were watching the police, and trying to spot the vicious dog. Grandad joined me, and we stood there, slightly bemused by the whole scene. It dawned on me that what we were watching might not develop into a very good situation – the lack of an obvious dog was ringing alarm bells by now.
I suggested we take 3-yo down to the basement, realising I didn’t want her to be around to see what might transpire, or even get caught up in it. She was young enough not to question the adults’ sudden desire for a game of air hockey at this early hour, and we all went downstairs. Grandad’s curiosity kept getting the better of him, and he sneaked up from time to time to see what was happening.
The story ends with 5 police cars parked in the street, and a whole huddle of policemen, and a man being put in one of the cars and driven away. I later found out that the man, who wasn’t armed, was burgling the house two doors up from us. He’d been watching the house, knew the times that the owners left in the morning, but, unluckily for him, the day he chose to do the burglary, one of the owners had forgotten something, realized on the way to work, returned home, became suspicious when he saw a strange car in the drive, and called the police.
What a great start to Granny and Grandad’s visit! I like to think we gave them something to tell the folks back home. Less than 24 hours in America, in a neighbourhood which we’d been telling them was nice and safe, and a drama unfolds before their very eyes involving armed police on the front lawn! Now if that didn’t confirm all their preconceptions of life in America, I don’t know what would (well, I suppose if we’d been having Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coke for breakfast, that would have helped). If it had happened the previous morning, we’d have missed the whole thing. We were only having breakfast in the dining room instead of the kitchen because of our visitors, and from the kitchen window, which looks out to the back, we’d have seen nothing. Timing, you see.
The thing I haven’t figured out is this. What was the point of the man in the bobble hat in the story? Was he just an extra, sent along by the movie-impressions people to add a bit of local color? Was he the Chief of Police, checking up on his men, incognito? Was he some kind of guardian angel, sent to make sure no-one got hurt in any crossfire? Was he a bobble hat salesman?
Next time: Shadowy Husband. The time after that: my reflections on America’s gun culture.
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