12 Days of Christmas - Blue Christmas

I’m cheating here a bit because this is an album rather than a specific song, but I can’t help myself – it is one of my very favourite things about Christmas. I’ll play this CD to death between December 1 and January 1 (when I’m forced by everyone around me to give it up) and will be either humming or singing it if I’m not at home.

Why do I like it so much?

Partly because it’s one of those albums that works perfectly. There’s no place where you feel jarred from one song to another, no place where you wonder why in the heck did they include that song?, no place where you get bored. Part of that is because it’s from another time, when songs were shorter, albums were shorter. Part of it is because I know the words to all of the songs. But most of it is because I love the way Elvis’s sweet tenor makes all these songs so sweet and almost sad.

And honestly? My favorite song is the saddest Christmas song ever – and maybe that’s why I play it over and over again. It makes me think of all the people I’ll miss over the holidays, people who are gone, people I’ve lost touch with, people who are simply somewhere other than Vancouver for the holidays. 

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you
I’ll be so blue just thinking about you
Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree
Won’t be the same, dear, if you’re not here with me

I didn’t have to look up those lyrics, I know them off by heart – and just typing them here brought tears to my eyes. Because I can’t think of this song without thinking of the people I’ll miss. This year, it’s my mom, even though she’s been gone for almost fifteen years.

It’s funny (funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha, as my mom would say) how we go through waves of longing, of missing someone – and I suspect for all of us, Christmas is one of the worst times. 

So what I wish for you for the holidays is that you keep the ones you’re missing this year close to your heart, that you can remember the wonderful, happy times you spent with them, and that you have a perfect Christmas song of your own.

Kate