Christmas Memories
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas always brings tears to my heart. The good wishes this little tune offers seem to encompass all the longing within to have what is always just out of reach.
This morning, awaiting our departure from Love Field, Dallas, I heard Karen Carpenter’s exquisite voice – and so much sadness washed over me as I thought about how her life ended – and how Judy Garland, who first sang it Meet Me in St. Louis ended her life – about friends and family who are having a tough, tough time. Not to mention the skies were gloomy, too!
I couldn’t shake the melancholy — so I started looking for information about Karen Carpenter – but, I began looking at the song itself and found a bright spot that perhaps will delight you as well.
In 2001, the 86-year-old composer Hugh Martin, occasionally active as a pianist with religious ministries since the 1980s, wrote an entirely new set of lyrics to the song with John Fricke, “Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas,” a religious version of the secular Christmas standard. (Wiki on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas)
Singing is a great tonic – and I pray that if you are bowed down, worn out, and weak and done in by seasonal madness, this might encourage: Alone Yet Not Alone.
Love in Christ,
bwsmith