The song, Silver Bells, has many connotations for me. I first heard it as a young girl.
My mom and dad always took us out looking for the perfect Christmas tree. Sometimes we’d drive for hours before Dad found just the right area to search in. He’d park on the side of the country road and tell us to get ready, then go around to the back of the truck and haul out his axe and a rope so we could drag it out of the bush. The snow would be deep and fresh, with only a few animal tracks to guide us on our journey.
If the sun was still high enough, the snow would glisten like diamonds. If it was lower, the trees would cast shadows and we would hurry to stay close to our dad. The thing I remember most is the quiet. No cars. No people chattering. Just the crunch of our boots and the wind sighing through the spruce trees.
Being a townie, as we called the kids who always lived within town limits, this was a treat for us. It reminded me of church. And maybe that’s what it was meant to be, Nature’s cathedral.
When we’d finally get back home, Mom would make us hot chocolate, place Bing Crosby on our stereo record player, and Dad would bring the tree into the house and find the best spot to set it up. Most of the time, he picked a tree that was miles too big for our living room and bare on one side. He would grin at Mom’s clucks and groans and wink at us.
I think it was a game they played. 🙂
When my dad passed away, we stopped going out on our Christmas tree quest, instead we bought an artificial that went up in any corner of the room and always looked perfect.
But it didn’t have the scent of pine, or the love of a family outing to make it into something special.
When Mimi Barbour came up with the idea for a box set of holiday stories titled with Christmas songs, it was easy to decide which one I’d like to do. I was delighted when one of the winners of this spring’s Fresh Fiction contest chose my song!
It was fate. Thank you, Deb Philippon. 🙂
What about you? Do you have family traditions, young or old, that makes the holidays that bit more special?
We’d love to hear about them.
I hope you’ll give the Love, Christmas Collection a try. It’s filled with twenty never-before-seen novellas from bestselling authors of romance.
I think you’re going to like it!
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Those are some special memories. We did pretty much the same thing with the tree and decorating it. But I remember Silver Bells because it always seemed to be playing in town when we went Christmas shopping. Nowadays that would be seen as crass commercialism but having Christmas music blaring from the street corners, however they did it just made Christmas a hopping more special for us.
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Agreed, Pat. I love hearing the caroles playing, that’s part of the Christmas spirit 🙂
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