My wife and I were talking about Christmas songs tonight, and my mind flew back to when I was a kid. A distinct memory entered my mind, a memory of laying down on the big couch in our front room and listening to one record, a Christmas record over and over again.
The record? Holiday, Sing Along With Mitch.
Looking back, it seems strange that a eight to fourteen-year old boy would listen to big-band songs that are just a step or two above elevator music. I think of my boys--the thought of them calling this "entertainment" seems laughable.
But in my defense, there weren't a lot of options.
This would have been the mid to late 1970s. The internet as we know it was decades away. This was even before cable television. A High Fidelity, or "Hi-Fi" system was about as good as it got for home entertainment. We had no VCRs, no Blockbuster videos. If you wanted to listen to something, you had to buy it, or hope it came on the radio. My mom bought Mitch's holiday spectacular and it was my Christmas jam.
I wonder a lot about my childhood, especially watching my own kids grow up. I see what they have now, and the things me and my friends didn't have. I wonder if--even with all the games and internet and YouTube videos available to them today--are they better off? Or is there something sweet and innocent about a boy laying on the couch as Mitch and his orchestra crank out holiday favorites, something a pre-teenager wouldn't understand, something maybe gone and lost forever.
The album was most likely tossed or donated to a thrift store years ago. The hi-fi system is probably rotting in a landfill somewhere, its carcass of plastic, wood siding (I think...), and maybe even vacuum tubes having long lived out its usefulness. The memories, however, they remain. I hope they always will.
And I'm pretty sure I did follow Mr. Miller's instructions and sang along with him and his music.
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