I used to hate Christmas. Hell, I used to hate all holidays that weren’t Halloween. But, as I’ve talked about in other posts, my recent medical scare has changed many things for me. One of them is my hatred of holidays. It’s gone. Vanished into the night. I went to Thanksgiving at my brother’s with my parents and had a good time. I’m considering going again (without my parents because they are back in Taiwan) for Christmas and it’s not causing me to break into hives.
What makes the difference? Well, I’d been moving in that direction for the past few years in general and this year, the fact that I’m alive trumps many, many things. Including my hatred of holidays and my hatred of having my picture taken.
And, I was just raving on Twitter about how amazing my body is for having survived the medical trauma it went through. I used to have body issues for–well, all my life, but those have been wiped away. My body is fucking mazing for surviving non-COVID-related pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke. Not only surviving, but accruing no lasting damage. How can I hate on my body after that?
But some things never change. One of them is my everlasting love for the one true Christmas song, O Holy Night. Every year, I listen to countless versions of it just because I can. I’m doing that today and I’d like to share a few (or a dozen) of those versions with you. Before I do, however, there are two Christmas-related songs I really like that I’ll share first. One of them is Vienna Teng’s, The Atheist Christmas Carol.
The next is White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin. He’s also an atheist, but one who likes Christmas.
With that out of the way, we can get to the endless versions of O Holy Night, the only Christmas carol that I acknowledge exists. Why do I like it so much? It’s ethereal without the overly-saccharine tones to it that so many other Christmas carols have. The melody is just so pleasing to me and I actually sang it once in church for Christmas. I had to strain to hit the high notes, but I did well over all.
I was going to do my usual thing of listening to and listing a dozen versions of the song (and I still might), but I’m in a musing mood and want to talk some things out. Since it’s my blog, I can do whatever I want. Let’s start with one that is more on the traditional side with a heavy gospel flavor to it. It’s Chris Tomlin, featuring CeCe Winans, whose voice is magnificent. she can convey so much emotion with it and her black eye shadow is on point.