This, one of my very earliest memories, came rushing back to me this morning as I drove to the Woodbridge Mall.
I was a little tiny boy, cuddled up on the couch with my Uncle Bernie, in my Grammy’s living room, complete with Christmas tree, and with It Came Upon a Midnight Clear playing somewhere in the background, probably on the radio; and Bernie was reading to me from a book of Christmas stories. When he finished, he turned on the TV set and we watched A Christmas Carol–the old one, with Reginald Owen as Scrooge–on the tiny black-and-white screen. I was too young to understand the movie, although my uncle did help me to see it was a story about a bad man who changed, and became good. I do remember Scrooge in his nightshirt meeting the Ghost of Christmas Past.
And this memory brings tears to my eyes, because everything about it was just so good, so right: but my uncle and my Grammy, they’ve long since passed on and their house is a place I can’t go to anymore, long for it as I may. And to this day I love A Christmas Carol, and It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. I even remember some of the pictures in the book, of angels singing.
So much beauty, so much blessing. God knew what He was doing when he gave us Christmas.
(Video sung by St. Peter’s Choir)
Reminiscent in many ways of my young life, and these memories are always precious. It is also good to share them and we can all enjoy.
I saw that version when a kid also – it is still great and better than most of the remakes.
Factoid: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” is the only traditional Christmas carol written by a Unitarian. I love trivia – what can I say?
A Unitarian–who would have thought it?