From today's TIMES and NEWS-STAR
The
waiting room at the doctor’s office is as far away from the North Pole as Fourth
of July is from Christmas. By definition, you are in a room where you do nothing
but grab a creased Newsweek with Clinton on the cover and wait.
So
I listened. And was not surprised. Coughs. Sneezes. Harsh words about a co-pay.
And I thought, It really IS beginning to sound a lot like Christmas.
If
Santa comes in moaning with the flu, we’ll have touched all the bases.
I
love me some sounds of Christmastime, even though one of those sounds is a sniffle,
and a standard is the inspired blowing of a nose. Hark the herald…
There’s
the sound of the angry shopper, the screeching tires, the curse word when the
lights don’t work, and the timeless “Are we there yet?”
Those
are Christmas-seasoned but could happen almost any time. Christmas, though,
Christmas has a language all its own, a language you hear only this time of
year. Not a lot of Santa spottings in summertime.
When
do you hear “figgy pudding” or “ho ho ho” or “What size sweater you think he
wears?” except at Christmastime?
Rudolph.
The
Island of Misfit Toys.
Burl
Ives.
Andy
Williams singing “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “The Andy
Williams Christmas Special.” Came on public television the other night, a
retrospective. Andy Williams, one of the finest gentleman and most talented
entertainers to ever walk onto a stage, didn’t invent the Christmas sweater,
but he probably perfected it …
Silver
bells. Jingle bells. Sleigh bells. The bells of the Salvation Army.
Holly
jolly.
Brenda
Lee -- and if you don’t know how to bake a pie, Sara Lee!
Dean
Martin singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside.” (Reminder: Dean Martin, most
underrated entertainer ever.)
“Ha…llelujah!
Hallelujah. Hallelujah!”
What’s
your favorite Christmas sound? Could be your children, if you have little ones.
Could be the memories of how your grown ones sounded when they were little
ones. Maybe it’s your family arriving – or leaving! I know it’s not “Grandma
Got Run Over By A Reindeer.” (See “inspired nose blowing,” above.)
Christmas
sounds are Ralphie asking for a BB gun and “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “White
Christmas” and my favorite Christmas movie, “Scrooged,” which concludes with
the Bill Murray character, TV exec Frank Cross, the modern-day Scrooge now
re-born into the wonder of Christmas, saying that Christmas Eve is “…the one
night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we smile a little easier, we cheer
a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people
that we always hoped we would be!”
Christmas
is the sound of someone, somewhere, changing.
It’s
December words and phrases like Bethlehem and shepherds keeping watch …
And
lo, the angel of the Lord…
Unto
you is born this day in the city of David…
The
wise men…
A
manger and swaddling clothes.
And
somewhere in all these Christmas words and sounds, between a baby crying and
the cattle lowing and our carol singing, is the blessed sound of fullness…in
silence. Not emptiness, but fullness.
Silent
night, holy night.
The
noise of nothing, which is the sound of everything. You’ll hear it if you try –
and sometimes, even if you don’t.
Sounds
good to me.
-30-
