It’s not really Christmas until…

It’s the holiday season.  Christmas is upon us and soon we’ll be celebrating the start of a new year.

However, I found it very odd that I really hadn’t been feeling “Christmas-y”.  Now, don’t go giving me any of your “Bah Humbug” crap.  I have plenty of Christmas spirit!  I’ve been enjoying the cheesy movies on Hallmark and Lifetime.  I’ve been listening to Christmas music.  Lord knows, I’ve been cooking and baking until I’ve wanted to tear out the stove and oven and throw them out the window.  I even did “Secret Snowflake” at work.  So, Christmas spirit isn’t the problem.

Like I said…there was just something missing to make it truly feel like the holidays for me.

Well, today on my way to my aunt’s house to have Christmas Eve dinner with the family, I figured out what was missing.

A song came on the radio and, suddenly, it was truly Christmas.

You see, my grandmother LOVED this song!  And, so, when I hear it, I think of her and her holiday baking and cooking. (A tradition I’m trying to continue.) I think of the family all gathering at her house on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas Day.  I think of being a child in my grandparents’ house and gazing in absolute wonder at the presents under the Christmas tree.  I remember playing with my cousins and sharing (or, sometimes, not) our new toys.  I remember Mom getting me all dressed up to go to mass – sometimes Midnight mass, sometimes in the morning before we opened gifts.  This one song evokes so many memories for me – because it makes me think of Gram.

Gram loved Christmas music.  We had to have the “All Christmas, All the Time” radio station on in the car whenever we went somewhere.  Perry Como and Bing Crosby were always queued up in the CD player at home.  I always knew when Gram liked a particular song because she would start tapping her right foot.  If she really liked a song, she would tap the fingers on her right hand along with her foot.  (Imagine my surprise when “Boom Boom Pow” by the Black Eyed Peas came on the radio one day and Gram was “double-tapping” along.  Imagine my utter shock when she said, “I like this.”)

But, when this song came on the radio, she’d tap both feet and the fingers on both hands along with the music. I swore there were times she was ready to hop up and dance.

So, yeah.  I guess it’s not really Christmas for me until I hear “Dominick the Donkey” by Lou Monte.

Merry Christmas, my friends.