Last week, my co-worker Jennifer Smyser asked me to be “DJ for a Day” and create a Christmas playlist for Lakeland’s virtual holiday party. I was happy to oblige. Here is the result:
I truthfully found myself in tears putting this together. It’s been a rough year due to COVID, and let me say that I have been incredibly lucky to be steadily employed, healthy, and with family, but now, staring down the holidays without the prospect of many things that I’ve always loved about them is not easy, and this playlist brought all of that back, along with the fact that people I love aren’t getting any younger: in a couple of Christmases, we will be out of the Santa Claus years at our house, and my wife and I have both lost aunts and my last grandmother in the last few years, so in some way, there won’t be any going back. At any rate, here are my six songs, with a little bit of information on each.
“Deck the Halls,” Traditional, arranged and performed by Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller.
In the 1980s, we loved our synthesizers and drum machines, and Mannheim Steamroller gave us their first Christmas album in 1984, a digital sugar cookie for my musically-impressionable ears. We always traveled to my grandma’s house in Tuscarawas County on Christmas Day, and I vividly remember a Christmas afternoon with my cousins playing cards and listening to this record the way it was meant to be heard—on one of those new-fangled CD players. I wish I could play this whole album the opening track will have to do!
“Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson, performed by Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops.
No self-respecting orchestra or band director would leave this one off the list, but for me, it’s a special one, because in 2001, when I was teaching high school band at a small school in Clark County, Ohio, I had a group of students that was hard-working, but not quite up to the challenges of this piece. I put it in front of them anyway, and over the next few weeks watched in amazement as they rose to the challenge of a piece of music that they clearly loved.
“Pat-a-Pan,” traditional, arranged and performed by the Quadriga Ensemble
I had a girlfriend in college who hated “Pat-a-Pan” and said it ruined Christmas to hear it. She left me in an ugly breakup, so ever since I have promoted awareness of this song, because I think it’s actually really fun. So if anyone knows any radio DJs in Salt Lake City… yeah, that’s where she was living the last I heard.
“Light One Candle” by Peter Yarrow, performed by Peter, Paul & Mary and the New York Choral Society.
My parents weren’t hippies, but they loved Peter, Paul & Mary, and this Hanukkah song from their 1988 holiday concert sums up what we can all take from their work. We didn’t have a VCR until about this time, and my parents taped this special when it was on PBS and wore out the tape rewatching it over the next year. If you haven’t seen it, go find the whole thing on YouTube!
“Linus and Lucy,” by Vince Guaraldi, performed by the Vince Guaraldi Trio
It just isn’t Christmas until we see Charlie Brown pick out a Christmas tree and hear Linus tell us what Christmas is all about. The jazz trio is one of the purest ways I know to make music, and even though this little Latin ditty with a swing bridge doesn’t have much to do with Christmas, it certainly gets me in the holiday spirit.
“Keep Christmas With You,” by Sam Pottle and David Axelrod, performed by the cast of Sesame Street.
I wore this record out as a preschooler in the very early 80s—I was a Sesame Street kid, and I was convinced that Bert and Ernie were Muppet versions of my brother and me. This song, in addition to being well-written like every song on that show, is a wonderful sentiment that I’ve tried to pass on to my kids as well. (Incidentally, the video in the playlist isn’t the version I listened to: you need to find the original Sesame Street Christmas album for that–there’s a really nice verse that precedes the main song in that recording.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!