As I pen this blog, I am both happy and contented. My younger sister and her husband are up from Alabama; and we all went out to dinner together earlier this evening. For any number of reasons, it was good to see her and her husband.
Not least among them are the various Christmas memories we alone still share. For with a father and mother and, now, an older sister in Heaven, we are the only two left to cherish the personal memories of Christmases spent with our immediate family so long ago down on a Georgia farm.
As if in anticipation of this night, as well as this time of year, I recently compiled a playlist on my iPod. (Yes, I am old school and still use one of those outdated devices.) That playlist (aptly named “My Childhood Christmas”) was based upon those same Christmases on that same Georgia farm of so long ago.
You see, for whatever reason, it somehow fell to me to wind up retaining possession of my parents’ old collection of classic 33+1⁄3 rpm LP (or Long Playing) albums. Here while back, I pulled these albums out and attempted to listen to them. Sadly, they were so well worn that the music was barely audible over the scratches acquired through years and years of play on an old living room stereo console.
At first, I tried acquiring a device that converted LP albums to digital music. While the transfer was successful, the audio quality of the final product was no better than the original. Not to be stymied, and after considerable thought, I soon found a way to resolve my dilemma.
I first took note of, and then researched, all of the original albums, recording artists, and/or record companies that were printed on the labels of the actual LP albums. In short order, I had myself a list of the most remembered ones – among them many RCA Victor hits of the early 1960s including “The Robert Shaw Chorale”, “The Voices of Walter Schumann”, “The Mexicali Brass”, “The Harry Simeone Chorale”, and “George Beverly Shea”. In no time flat, I had purchased and downloaded digital versions of all these productions and then loaded them onto my device.
And thus it was, while I was recently listening to these artists, that I once again heard a powerful song by George Beverly Shea (this time on the compilation album “A George Beverly Shea Christmas”, but originally released on his 1956 album “Christmas Hymns”) titled “Put Christ Back Into Christmas”.
Struck by the lyrics, I decided to post them here…
“Don't wish me Merry Xmas
Or Happy Holiday,
Put Christ back into Christmas
On this blessed holy day
Put Christ back into Christmas
Like on that silent night
When the star of Bethlehem
Gave way to new born life.
Let all the world give glory
To Christ the King of Kings
Let children hear the story
Of love our Saviour brings.
Put Christ back into Christmas
Like on that silent night
When the star of Bethlehem
Gave way to new born life.”
Wow! If that was a relevant message way back in 1956, then how much more is it one today, in 2023, nearly three quarters of a century later?!
And so, my friends, irrespective of the current cultural imperative(s), beware the innumerable and insufferable admonition(s) to have either a “Happy Holidays” and/or a “Merry Xmas”!
Either Christmas is about Christ or it is not. Either we, as His followers, are Christians or we or not. Either this time of year is about His coming at Christmastime or it is not.
For my part, I agree with George Beverly Shea - “Don't wish me Merry Xmas, or Happy Holiday”; but rather, “Put Christ back into Christmas”, just “like on that silent night”!
That original silent night, that original Holy night, first pondered by shepherds nearly two millennia ago, and again so many centuries later, by me in my childhood years, and now, yet again by me in my later years, is both ever recurrent and ever demanding.
And as it ever recurs, it continually asks, it continually requests, nay, it continually demands this one thing of us… “Please, please, please… Put Christ back into Christmas!”
After all, is not the Christmas story the original and definitive LP (or Long Playing) message?!
As the Apostle John puts it in the very first chapter of his New Testament Gospel, it was as a result of what transpired that first Christmas, when the Word had become flesh and made His dwelling among us, that God would tell us that “to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Beverly_Shea;
https://www.discogs.com/master/688573-George-Beverly-Shea-Christmas-Hymns-By-George-Beverly-Shea;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8FOC5GvUCw;
INTERESTING NOTE:
Very few people seem to realize it, but as two separate articles cited by Wikipedia affirm, because of the very large attendance at Billy Graham Crusades throughout the decades, it is estimated that George Beverly Shea sang live before more people than anyone else in all of human history!
Cf.: Melvin L. Butler, "Globalization of Gospel," in Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, ed. W. K. McNeil (Routledge Press, 2005), p.139; and Don Cusic, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel Music (Popular Press, 1990), p. 182.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/bsb/john/1.htm.
INTERESTING NOTE NUMBER TWO:
Harry Simeone was the one, in 1958, who first popularized the "The Little Drummer Boy" (originally known as "Carol of the Drum" and recorded in 1951 by the Austrian Von Trapp Family.) Of course, the song was later adapted into a stop motion television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions in 1968.
Not least among them are the various Christmas memories we alone still share. For with a father and mother and, now, an older sister in Heaven, we are the only two left to cherish the personal memories of Christmases spent with our immediate family so long ago down on a Georgia farm.
As if in anticipation of this night, as well as this time of year, I recently compiled a playlist on my iPod. (Yes, I am old school and still use one of those outdated devices.) That playlist (aptly named “My Childhood Christmas”) was based upon those same Christmases on that same Georgia farm of so long ago.
You see, for whatever reason, it somehow fell to me to wind up retaining possession of my parents’ old collection of classic 33+1⁄3 rpm LP (or Long Playing) albums. Here while back, I pulled these albums out and attempted to listen to them. Sadly, they were so well worn that the music was barely audible over the scratches acquired through years and years of play on an old living room stereo console.
At first, I tried acquiring a device that converted LP albums to digital music. While the transfer was successful, the audio quality of the final product was no better than the original. Not to be stymied, and after considerable thought, I soon found a way to resolve my dilemma.
I first took note of, and then researched, all of the original albums, recording artists, and/or record companies that were printed on the labels of the actual LP albums. In short order, I had myself a list of the most remembered ones – among them many RCA Victor hits of the early 1960s including “The Robert Shaw Chorale”, “The Voices of Walter Schumann”, “The Mexicali Brass”, “The Harry Simeone Chorale”, and “George Beverly Shea”. In no time flat, I had purchased and downloaded digital versions of all these productions and then loaded them onto my device.
And thus it was, while I was recently listening to these artists, that I once again heard a powerful song by George Beverly Shea (this time on the compilation album “A George Beverly Shea Christmas”, but originally released on his 1956 album “Christmas Hymns”) titled “Put Christ Back Into Christmas”.
Struck by the lyrics, I decided to post them here…
“Don't wish me Merry Xmas
Or Happy Holiday,
Put Christ back into Christmas
On this blessed holy day
Put Christ back into Christmas
Like on that silent night
When the star of Bethlehem
Gave way to new born life.
Let all the world give glory
To Christ the King of Kings
Let children hear the story
Of love our Saviour brings.
Put Christ back into Christmas
Like on that silent night
When the star of Bethlehem
Gave way to new born life.”
Wow! If that was a relevant message way back in 1956, then how much more is it one today, in 2023, nearly three quarters of a century later?!
And so, my friends, irrespective of the current cultural imperative(s), beware the innumerable and insufferable admonition(s) to have either a “Happy Holidays” and/or a “Merry Xmas”!
Either Christmas is about Christ or it is not. Either we, as His followers, are Christians or we or not. Either this time of year is about His coming at Christmastime or it is not.
For my part, I agree with George Beverly Shea - “Don't wish me Merry Xmas, or Happy Holiday”; but rather, “Put Christ back into Christmas”, just “like on that silent night”!
That original silent night, that original Holy night, first pondered by shepherds nearly two millennia ago, and again so many centuries later, by me in my childhood years, and now, yet again by me in my later years, is both ever recurrent and ever demanding.
And as it ever recurs, it continually asks, it continually requests, nay, it continually demands this one thing of us… “Please, please, please… Put Christ back into Christmas!”
After all, is not the Christmas story the original and definitive LP (or Long Playing) message?!
As the Apostle John puts it in the very first chapter of his New Testament Gospel, it was as a result of what transpired that first Christmas, when the Word had become flesh and made His dwelling among us, that God would tell us that “to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”
SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Beverly_Shea;
https://www.discogs.com/master/688573-George-Beverly-Shea-Christmas-Hymns-By-George-Beverly-Shea;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8FOC5GvUCw;
INTERESTING NOTE:
Very few people seem to realize it, but as two separate articles cited by Wikipedia affirm, because of the very large attendance at Billy Graham Crusades throughout the decades, it is estimated that George Beverly Shea sang live before more people than anyone else in all of human history!
Cf.: Melvin L. Butler, "Globalization of Gospel," in Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, ed. W. K. McNeil (Routledge Press, 2005), p.139; and Don Cusic, The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel Music (Popular Press, 1990), p. 182.
SCRIPTURE:
https://biblehub.com/bsb/john/1.htm.
INTERESTING NOTE NUMBER TWO:
Harry Simeone was the one, in 1958, who first popularized the "The Little Drummer Boy" (originally known as "Carol of the Drum" and recorded in 1951 by the Austrian Von Trapp Family.) Of course, the song was later adapted into a stop motion television special produced by Rankin/Bass Productions in 1968.