’Tis the Season for Red, Green…and Blue

Maybe it’s the contrarian in me, but seasons of forced jollity tend to evoke the opposite emotions of sadness and loss. I know I’m not alone. Blue Christmas is a universal phenomenon.

My partner and I were reminded by the season that for the past four years we have lost family members during the holidays: a brother each, a mother, and an ex-brother-in-law. More than a decade ago my father died on Christmas Eve. Loss, though purely coincidental with the festive season, is nonetheless more keenly felt when all about you is supposed to be joyful.

Music is the emotional marker, and everyone has a selection of popular sad-song favorites this time of year. I’ll limit myself to three.

The oldest is “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” first recorded by Bing Crosby in 1943. The lyric represents a letter home, written by a serviceman posted overseas during World War II. “I’ll be home for Christmas,” the lyric goes, “if only in my dreams.” Bing’s rendition was a top-ten hit, and the song seems to have been recorded by a new artist or two every year. It probably resonates with me because my father was a serviceman, posted overseas during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Most military families have endured missed Christmases. And because this country is perpetually at war, it seems, there's no end in sight.

“Blue Christmas,” written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson, was initially recorded by Doyle O’Dell in 1948 but more memorably by Ernest Tubb a little later. Tubb’s rendition occupied the #1 spot on Billboard magazine’s Most-Played Juke Box (Country and Western) Records for the first week of January in 1950. However, the most popular version came nearly a decade and a half later, when Elvis Presley recorded it for the album, Blue Christmas, which was released in November 1964. The album was among a cluster of “comeback” recordings during the years following Elvis’s stint in the military from March 24, 1958, to March 2, 1960, when he was discharged with the rank of sergeant.

Interestingly, Presley was stationed in Friedburg, Germany, beginning October 1 of 1958. Our family was posted to Butzbach, Germany, that year; I was ten years old when Mom, my brother, my sister, and I arrived to join Dad in what was then West Germany on December 14. While Elvis was in Germany, he met fourteen-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he would marry after a seven-and-a-half-year courtship.

The last of my three is “Hard Candy Christmas,” written by Carol Hall for the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Who’d have thought that a song sung by the evicted prostitutes of a Texas brothel would become a sad Christmas standard? In the movie version Dolly Parton played the madame and released her version of the song in October 1982. It climbed to #8 on the U.S. country singles chart. The film adaptation also featured some songs added by Dolly, including “I Will Always Love You,” which later became a hit for Whitney Houston, although I’ve always favored Dolly’s rendition.

Others can add their sad favorites for this season, and I could mention a few more. But three are sufficient.

Holiday Movie, Anyone?

Everyone has some favorite holiday movies, so why shouldn’t I trot out my Top Five list? The season is made for nostalgia—for good or ill—and so I find that most of my favorites are, as they say, vintage. Here goes:

1. Miracle on 34th Street may be my all-time favorite. I’m talking about the 1947 black-and-white film that stars Edmund Gwen (as Kris Kringle, shown), Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, and a very young Natalie Wood. The remake pales by comparison. The original was one of the first films to be “colorized”—a crime against art if there ever was one.

2. The Lemon Drop Kid, 1951, gets a vote because Bob Hope and Marilyn Maxwell introduced my favorite Christmas carol, “Silver Bells,” in it. Holiday Inn, the 1942 Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire vehicle that introduced “White Christmas,” is a runner-up and better, in my view, than the movie with which it’s often confused, White Christmas, a 1954 film that starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen.

3. Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol, has been translated to film repeatedly, apparently so that every generation can have its own. Well, for me, it’s the 1951 version, starring Alistair Sim. Another black-and-white classic.

4. The 1944 Judy Garland film, Meet Me in St. Louis, isn’t a holiday movie per se, but Garland did introduce “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which has become a holiday standard. Another non-holiday film with a favorite Christmas song is Mame, in which Lucille Ball sang “We Need a Little Christmas,” though the film was a less successful vehicle than the original stage musical, which starred Angela Lansbury.

5. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993, features such haunting music paired with innovative animation that I cannot help but enjoy it time and again. If it were a feature film, I’d also throw in the television favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! This Dr. Seuss book was made into an animated film for TV in 1966, starring Boris Karloff as the narrator and the voice of the Grinch. I watch it every year and it’s always magical.

Granted, I fudged the list to mention more than five films. There are many others that make popular lists that I haven’t included. They simply don’t resonate with me; they may with you. Winter weather makes this time of year perfect to cuddle up with someone you love, share a hot chocolate, and watch a holiday favorite. That’s what I plan to do.