So, I'm sure you've all heard about "Christmas in July" when car salesman, and department stores, and a variety of other shops offer a cool reminder of winter to distract us from the blistering heat of summer. I have a confession to make that may surprise some of you. Are you ready for it? Here goes . . . I've been listening to Christmas Music in my car for about a month now. My husband isn't even remotely interested in hearing Christmas Music until December. I'm sure he appreciates the fact that I don't' play it at home, and, that mostly, we listen to it in the car.
The real culprit in all of this is my four-year-old. One day while she was browsing through my CD collection she spotted a Christmas CD. Not knowing what it was, she asked if she could listen to it. I thought to myself, 'Why not? It can't do any harm.' Unfortunately for me, when she heard the first phrase of 'Jingle Bell Rock' she was hooked. In total bliss, she danced and swayed to the music. Then she pulled me in and asked me to dance with her. Once again I thought, 'Why not?' So I picked her up and started twirling her around. She was in love. And about two dozen times later, I'm glad to say she's moved on to other things. Now, she wants to listen to the WHOLE Christmas CD. At present, I keep it in my car so that when she asks to listen to it I can say, "It's out in the car, sweetie. We can't listen to it until we drive somewhere." And trust me; we listen to it every time we get in the car.
As for me, at first I thought I would just humor her. Let her listen to Jingle Bell Rock and dance to the music. It was cute. And as long as I limited it to three times a day, it wasn't unbearable. Then something unexpected happened. As I listened to the CD over and over again I began to think that we (all of us who celebrate Christmas) may have things backwards. Sound strange? Humor me for a moment. When everything is dead and gloomy and gray outside, Christmas music has a way of uplifting us. Giving us hope during a bleak time of the year. But in spring, oh in spring, Christmas Music takes on a whole new meaning. Not only does the music uplift, but it does something else; it shines and glows right along with the coming of spring. Don't believe me? Try it yourself. Pick a beautiful spring day, roll down those windows and pop in your favorite Christmas CD. You'll smile. You'll laugh. Most importantly you'll love it. There is something about the hope of the music and the hope of spring that, when combined, gives a joy that Christmas music in the dead of winter never could. Yup, all it takes is a good CD, a beautiful blue sky, and rolling down road with the windows wide open. I guarantee you'll love it. Love it. If you don't, I'll send you a Christmas Song, "Jingle Bell Rock", and see if it doesn't get you up and dancing.
Song of Songs 2:10-13 My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the
season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.
I had a friend of mine when I was in seminary. He was at the Methodist seminary across the street from my seminary. He was from Australia. (He's now a member of Australian Parliament of all things.) But, he would go home in the summer and come back in the fall and stay through May and then do it all again.
ReplyDeleteThe kicker was that the Southern Hemisphere has the opposite season than we do, due to the tilting of the Earth on its axis. When it's winter here, it's summer there. So, he went basically 3 years without ever seeing summer. Summer would about start here and then he'd go home, where it would be starting winter.
He always thought the weirdest thing was to have Christmas in the dead of winter. In Australia, Christmas is always in the middle of summer and people go swimming. So, I think Australians would relate to your sentiments here.