I hope you’re deep in cookies and hot toddies at this point, my friends, or at least very close! In the past week or so, we’ve had gingerbread and mulled wine, fancy cheese and champagne, peppermint chocolate and lots of tea. We’ve watched plenty of holiday movies, participated in festive shopping around town and, today, observed our nieces and nephews meeting Santa, which was a pretty delightful sight. The shop has been full of friends and family reuniting over glasses of wine and folks seeking out the right bottles for the various celebrations at hand. Between a slew of lovely holiday parties and a bumpy plane ride back to our home state, we had a cozy celebration of our own, complete with wildly amazing mushroom toast à la Gjelina and some excellent wine. And I saw travelers being kind to each other at the airport, which was a bit of a shock but certainly served to lift my spirits.
And speaking of lifted spirits, remember what I told you about my holiday mixtapes, listened to as I drifted off to sleep at night throughout the Decembers of my childhood? I was first reminded when Ben played Stevie Wonder’s That’s What Christmas Means to Me a couple of weeks ago. That song was a favorite from one of my playlists, but I didn’t think Stevie Wonder’s version was the one I’d grown up with. I thought that my old favorite was sung by two black women, and that they bantered at the end of the song, something about wrapping presents and unwrapping presents. I searched the internet but didn’t find what I remembered, which led me to ponder if perhaps I’d spent my childhood mistaking Stevie Wonder for a woman.
Thankfully, I’m saved that embarrassment. It turns out that the rendition I knew best was Paul Young’s, followed on my personal playlist by Ronnie Spector and Darlene Love singing Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. At the end of that song, there’s the banter I recall, including a moment in which one of the ladies corrects the other’s grammar, which young-Stacy found pretty hilarious.
In this hunt for the song of my childhood, I (re)discovered Stevie Wonder’s album Someday at Christmas. Its best songs are the aforementioned and the title track, which most folks these days probably associate with Justin Bieber and/or Apple. But I am a sentimental sap, and so it is bringing me to tears over and over this season anyway. Ben and I have dubbed it our official song of Christmas 2015. I think it’s awfully appropriate and so am leaving you with a few lines today, with all of my best wishes for a very merry Christmas for you and yours.
“Someday at Christmas,” by Ron Miller & Bryan Wells
Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys
Playing with bombs like kids play with toys
One warm December our hearts will see
A world where men are free
Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars
When we have learned what Christmas is for
When we have found what life’s really worth
There’ll be peace on earth
Someday at Christmas we’ll see a land
With no hungry children, no empty hands
One happy morning people will share
A world where people care
Someday all our dreams will come to be
Someday in a world where men are free
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime
Someday at Christmastime
