“Christmas Music”

“The evocative, cherished sounds of the traditional Christmas music with which the children had grown up created the aural holiday mood every night. The albums themselves were the actual ones that had been played over the years: Mantovani, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Depending on when one was in the living room, one might hear serious and religious songs like “Silent Night” or “Adeste Fideles” or upbeat, jolly tunes like “Frosty the Snowman” or “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Whenever he heard “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” Skylar remembered how closely he had examined his conscience as a child to see whether an impartial observer would have rated his behavior “good” or “bad.” Then there was an entire class of songs that stirred wistfulness in his heart: “Little Drummer Boy” had, since he had first heard it, made him sorry for that small child who had no gifts to bring the baby Jesus. For some reason “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” struck him as anything but merry; there was a regretful nostalgia permeating it, and the lyric about always being together “if the fates allow” hinted at the possibility that they might not after all allow reunion. At the top of the list, though, was “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” in which Skylar could hear only the plaints and desperate cries of a lost people, set to music that transported him to a place of achingly lonely beauty.”