holiday traditions - RVing with Rex

Ditch the Air Travel Chaos! Road Trip this Holiday Season

This year, many people are choosing to avoid flying and hit the road for the holidays instead

What do Cousin Eddie from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and over 15 million Americans have in common? They are all planning to spend the holidays in their RV. With the projected number of RVers on the road during winter breaks, it’s clear the trend is on the rise.

According to the RV Industry Association (RVIA), 29 percent of Millennials and 20 percent of Gen Z will spend some time from Thanksgiving through New Year in the comfort of an RV. If you’re one of the 15 million Americans planning to avoid travel chaos during this time of year by hitting the open road in a motorhome, travel of fifth wheel trailer, van, camper, or converted bus you’re making a great choice.

The holiday season sees airports notoriously packed with stressed-out travelers. Meanwhile, RV parks and campgrounds remain relatively quiet. So, why not leave behind the airlines and travel in style in an RV? There are many reasons to ditch traditional holiday travel and enjoy a road trip.

Christmas in an RV *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Flexible travel plans

Traveling in an RV provides more leeway for planning a trip. Drivers don’t have to be committed to being in specific places at specific times like you do when flying.

Spend time with family and friends

For people working around the holidays taking a few days off for a local road trip is less stressful than planning an elaborate vacation far away from home. It may not be what your family has always done but it might be a fun opportunity to start a new tradition and make special memories.

“Spending time with friends and family is an integral part of the holidays and we know that whether RVing together for a holiday vacation or traveling in your RV for a holiday visit, spending time with friends and family is a primary reason people are going RVing this holiday season,” said RVIA Executive Vice President James Ashurst.

RVing with Fido *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Bring what you want

Are you worried about leaving the dog at home? Bring Fido along. Have food allergies? Make food in the RV. Spending Christmas break in a recreational vehicle gives people space to enjoy their environment and have creature comforts while surrounded by the magic of this special time of year.

Camping at Edisto Beach State Park, South Carolina *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Less expensive

Camping at a state park, national park, or RV park is less expensive than a traditional trip where you’d pay for airfare, hotels, and rental cars. On average, an RV vacation costs 50 percent less than a trip requiring airfare and hotel rooms.

According to a study commissioned by Go RVing and RVIA, there are cost savings of 21-64 percent for a four-person travel party while a two-person travel party saves 8-53 percent depending on factors such as the type of RV and type of vacation.

Hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Enjoy the great outdoors

Who says the holidays are just for staying indoors and being all cozy? Whether you’re hitting the slopes or taking a hike in nature, getting some exercise while enjoying the company of friends and family is a great way to spend your free time.

Shopping La Petite Gourmet Shoppe in La Grande, Texas *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Support the economy

RV travel and the outdoor recreation industry have exploded contributing $862 billion to the U.S. economy along with 4.5 million jobs, according to the Outdoor Recreation Satellite Account (ORSA).

“These two studies demonstrate that the RV industry and its customers are vital contributors to America’s economy and all indications are that they will continue to be so,” said RVIA Executive Vice President James Ashurst. “Growth in the industry is being increasingly driven by younger and more diverse RV buyers whose purchases are largely motivated by the desire to experience the great outdoors.”

When surrounded by nature, it’s hard not to relax and appreciate the simple things in life. It is easy to see why millions of people are choosing to road trip during this magical time of year.

Golfing Sky Mountain Golf Course in Hurricane, Utah *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Make new traditions

All in all, the pros of RV travel and road-tripping far outweigh the cons. In today’s hurried world, more and more people realize that taking the time to slow down and enjoy the ride is priceless. So, this holiday season, ditch the frantic airport lines and opt for a leisurely road trip— skiing, hiking, or visiting friends and family instead.

Best winter road trips for the holidays

If you are in the mood for a road trip to end the year, continue reading for some of the best spots to travel to for your holiday road trip.

Grand Canyon National Park *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Phoenix to the Grand Canyon, Arizona

While desert landscapes may not provide a winter wonderland experience, Phoenix knows how to do the holidays right with its famous Tumbleweed Tree tradition, a lighting ceremony, and Christmas parade. Before or after enjoying it, take a road trip to the Grand Canyon where there’s a good chance you’ll see at least a dusting of snow with the South Rim sitting at about 6,800 feet in elevation bringing lots of picture-perfect photo-ops without the crowds. And, during the holidays you can ride the Polar Express Train from Williams to the South Rim.

Big Bend National Park *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Austin to Big Bend National Park, Texas

This is one of those drives where the journey is as interesting as your destination. Driving from Austin to Big Bend National Park is 435 miles, a leisurely two-to-three day adventure with time for stops along the way.

You can have two totally different road trips from Austin to Big Bend National Park. If you move west on I-10, you can directly drive from Austin to Big Bend without many stops in between whereas the alternative route which cuts through Highway 90 is a lot more interesting thanks to the number of stops you have in between. If you take the second route, you could choose to stop at Del Rio for food and fuel and make a pit stop at Langtry to visit the Judge Roy Bean Museum.

Blue Ridge Parkway *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Asheville and the Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

Camp near Asheville and take a road trip north or south on the Blue Ridge Parkway to soak up spectacular mountain scenery that can be even more beautiful during the winter. It’s all about the journey so go slow and stop frequently. Before or after heading out you’ll be able to enjoy Asheville’s sparkling holiday light displays and decor and a visit to the Châteauesque-style mansion known as Biltmore Estate, the country’s largest privately-owned home. It’s worth touring any time of year but at Christmas the evening candlelight tour features over 50 Christmas trees.

Savannah *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

St. Augustine, Florida to Savannah, Georgia

Winter transforms beautiful St. Augustine, Florida, America’s oldest city, into a stunning spectacle of lights. Its magnificent Spanish architecture is lit up with over three million individual bulbs and there will be horse-drawn carriage rides to view them all. Afterward, take off for Savannah to enjoy the Boats on Parade with more than 40 lighted vessels parading both sides of the waterfront accompanied by live music, a tree lighting ceremony, and fireworks. Or enjoy an old-fashioned celebration with Christmas on the River with local entertainment, music, and seasonal treats.

Mount Washington Resort at Bretton Woods, New Hampshite *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Burlington, Vermont to Jackson, New Hampshire

The drive from Burlington, Vermont to Jackson, New Hampshire is gorgeous, traveling through the White Mountains with its red covered bridges surrounded by a dazzling winter wonderland. Stop in Bretton Woods to take advantage of Mount Washington Resort’s downhill runs, sleigh rides, ice skating, or tubing before continuing to one of the country’s most picturesque Christmas towns, Jackson. Here you can enjoy all sorts of snow sports and the Annual Journey to the North Pole train ride, complete with Santa and his elves.

Worth Pondering…

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

—Norman Vincent Peale

The Magnificent History of the Maligned and Misunderstood Fruitcake

We all know what a fruitcake is, or at least we think we do

The simple holiday fruitcake has been to outer space, served as the world’s first energy bar, and is an international $100 million business. However, despite all of these achievements, this ancient Roman dessert is still the target of countless jokes.

Fruitcake *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

The polarizing dessert that people love to hate became a Christmas mainstay thanks, in part, to the U.S. Postal Service. An estimated 3 billion packages will circulate through the postal service and delivery companies this holiday season. Somewhere among them is a 50-year-old fruitcake from Otsego County, New York.

Nothing says Christmas quite like a fruitcake—or, at the very least, a fruitcake joke. In a 1985 monologue, “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson quipped: “The worst gift is fruitcake. There is only one fruitcake in the entire world and people keep sending it to each other.”

It’s certainly earned its reputation for longevity.

True to Carson’s word, Phyllis Eggler and Jeanne Schuyler have been exchanging the same fruitcake since the late 1960s. The Egglers and the Schuylers were both newlywed couples living on different floors of the same home on Valleyview Street in Oneonta.

“He was very cheap,” Eggler said of their landlord. Eggler said the fruitcake gift inspired a prank.

“My husband and I rewrapped it as a joke,” she said. “That got it started.”

“The next year, we sent it back to them,” Schuyler said. “We’d just go along with it.”

Eggler and Schuyler, now in their 80s and widowed, still talk on the phone regularly and have no plans to give up the tradition. “It’s just a little fruitcake, but we’ve had lots of laughs over it,” Eggler said.

Mail-order fruitcakes became a popular holiday tradition in the early 20th century due to their enduring shelf life. Traditional recipes call for soaking a loaf in liqueur or brandy and coating it in powdered sugar, both of which are thought to inhibit mold.

Fruitcake is known to stay fresh for an inordinate amount of time.

In 2017 Antarctic conservators came upon a specimen that tests the limits of the treat: a 106-year-old cake, found in one of Antarctica’s first buildings. This particular cake is believed to have been brought over in 1910 during the Terra NovaExpedition to the South Pole, led by British Royal Navy officer Robert Falcon Scott. According to the Antarctic Heritage Trust, “it has been documented that Scott took this particular brand of cake with him at that time.”

But the honor for the oldest known existing fruitcake goes to one that was baked in 1878 when Rutherford B. Hayes was president of the United States.

Every year Freida Ford whipped up a fruitcake that would age for a year before being served the following holiday season. After making a cake in 1878, the 65-year-old matriarch died before it could be eaten. When the holidays arrived, the family no longer regarded her handiwork as food. They saw it as a legacy. Now it’s being kept in tribute to Ford’s great-grandson, Morgan, who was its biggest champion until his passing in 2013.

What’s amazing about these old fruitcakes is that people have tasted them and lived, meaning they are still edible after all these years.

The combination of sugar, low moisture ingredients (dried nuts, dried fruit, and “candied” fruit or peel) and some high-proof spirits make fruitcakes some of the longest-lasting foods in the world.

Fruitcake’s great, great, grandfather is the Roman Satura. The ancient Romans were looking for a way to sustain their troops in battle and developed a bread consisting of pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, raisins, barley mash, and honeyed wine. This cake was packed with calories and lasted long enough to fortify a soldier through an epic and exhausting campaign.

As dried fruits became more readily available, this Roman warrior energy bar eventually made its way off the battlefields and into homes as a dessert for special occasions. When Rome fell, local variations on the fruitcake emerged including Italy’s dense, sweet-and-spicy panaforte (literally, “strong bread”) and panettone, Germany’s stollen, a tapered loaf coated with melted butter and powdered sugar that’s more bread-like in consistency, and Britain’s plum pudding

Then, during the sugar boom of the 16th century the fruitcake, that we know today, began to emerge in Europe. Increasing amounts of fruit began to be preserved by soaking the fruit in inexpensive sugar from the colonies.

The modern fruitcake was created as a way to deal with the abundance of sugar-laced fruit and, by the early 19th century, the typical recipe was full of citrus peel, pineapples, plums, dates, pears, and cherries. By the late 1800s, the fruitcake was gifted in decorative tins, becoming a holiday staple with Christmas and fruitcake becoming intertwined in Victorian England with the help of colonial sugar.

The British adaptation of the Roman Satura recipe, plum porridge, was influenced by the sugar trade and the traditional meat in the porridge was replaced with the readily available sugar preserved fruit. During Christmas in the 19th century, it was traditional for English nobles to feed poor carolers with a slice of plum pudding and the Christmas carol, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” made begging for this figgy pudding famous.

The fruitcake becomes part of American history thanks to the very first first lady, Martha Washington, who made it for friends and family. So did another American icon, Emily Dickinson. The beloved poet made sure to bake fruitcake for everyone on her Christmas list. For a recluse and an introvert, she had a lot of friends. Her recipe for black cake, so called because it is brandy-rich, thick, dense, and dark with raisins, prunes, and dates—serves 60.

Before long, most cuisines had some sort of fruited breads or cakes that were early versions of the modern fruitcake. Fruitcakes are different in Europe than they are in America. European fruitcakes are more like the medieval fruited bread than the versions made in Great Britain and the United States. The two most common styles of fruitcake in Europe are the stollen and panettone.

British and American versions are much more cakelike. Fruitcakes came to America with the European colonists, and the rising tide of emigration from Britain to New England closely mirrored an influx of cheap sugar from the Caribbean.

Sugar was the key to preserving fruit for use across the seasons. One of the favorite methods of preserving fruit was to “candy” it. Candied fruit, sometimes known as crystallized fruit, is fruit that’s been cut into small pieces, boiled in sugar syrup, tossed in granulated sugar and allowed to dry.

Thanks to this technique, colonists were able to keep fruit from the summer harvest to use in their Christmas confections and fruitcakes became one of the most popular seasonal desserts.

Fruitcakes were also popular due to their legendary shelf life, which, in an era before mechanical refrigeration, was extremely desirable.

The best fruit cakes are matured—or “seasoned” in fruitcake lingo—for at least three months before they are cut. Seasoning not only improves the flavor of the fruitcake but it makes it easier to slice.

Seasoning a fruitcake involves soaking cheesecloth in brandy, bourbon, whiskey, rum or other liquor and then wrapping it around the cooked, cooled fruitcake and storing, or simply brushing the cake with an alcohol of your choice and wrap tightly and letting it sit in a cool, dark place.

Credit for the fruitcake’s popularity in America should at least partially go to the U.S. Post Office.

The institution of Rural Free Delivery in 1896 and the addition of the Parcel Post service in 1913 caused an explosion of mail-order foods in America. Overnight, once rare delicacies were a mere mail-order envelope away for people anywhere who could afford them.

Worth Pondering…

Friends are the fruitcake of life—some nutty, some soaked in alcohol, some sweet.

—Jon Ronson

Thanksgiving RV Trip: How to Enjoy the Holiday on the Road

Why not shake it up this year with a new tradition? Instead of the usual family gathering, jump in the RV and hit the road for a holiday you can be truly thankful for.

The classic vision of Thanksgiving typically involves a giant stuffed turkey with multiple side dishes and pies, all covering a long dining table surrounded by family and friends.

However, as RV travel continues to grow in popularity and more and more people adopt non-traditional lifestyles such as digital nomads and full-time RVing, the entire concept of holidays is rapidly changing. They can still be spent making memories and connecting with loved ones but that doesn’t necessarily have to mean spending several days in meal planning and prepping or even staying home.

This year, why not consider a Thanksgiving RV trip? Whether you go to a favorite place or a new one, head out solo, bring your whole family along, cook up a quintessential Thanksgiving feast or skip a traditional meal altogether, hitting the road is a fun and memorable way to spend the holiday.

Enjoying Thanksgiving at Clerbrook Golf and RV Resort, Clermont, Florida

Reasons to take a Thanksgiving RV trip

Experience national parks and other popular destinations during the shoulder season when there are few other visitors—enjoy less-crowded viewpoints and trails, little to no traffic, and your pick of campsites
A Thanksgiving RV trip creates a new tradition with your significant other or family
Minimal cleanup as compared to a kitchen in a house for Thanksgiving dinner
If you’re not a full-timer, a Thanksgiving trip can extend your camping season and let you enjoy one more adventure before storing your rig for winter

Spending Thanksgiving in Florida *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Ideas for your Thanksgiving RV trip

The sky is really the limit when it comes to places you can spend Thanksgiving in your RV but here are some unique ideas.

Camping at Arches National Park, Utah *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

National parks

Even the parks that close individual entrances or most roads for winter have at least one campground open all year. Planning a Thanksgiving RV trip is a wonderful way to experience some of the country’s most popular parks in a unique way without the crowds and in a much quieter setting. Most national park campgrounds are dry camping with no utilities.

Best of all, some national parks even host special Thanksgiving programs. For example, restaurants in Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Park host elaborate Thanksgiving spreads.

State parks

A quieter alternative to national parks, many state parks are open year-round and are very accessible. Choose one close to home, look for one that will still have fall foliage late in the season, or pick one that offers a warm climate. State park campgrounds offer a variety of sites including no services, electricity, and water only, and full-service camping. It’s a design-your-own-Thanksgiving-RV-trip.

Camping at Vista del Sol RV Resort, Bullhead City, Arizona *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Traditional RV parks

Camping in an RV park or resort over Thanksgiving can give you access to full hookups, scheduled activities, clubhouse and pool, fire pit, outdoor seating, and table space, and perhaps even shared kitchen facilities. Some parks may even host Thanksgiving events where you can meet other travelers.

Boondocking

If you want to try something different and completely unplug over the holiday, consider boondocking. You’ll need to do some advance planning in terms of grocery shopping and meal prepping plus decide how you’ll make Thanksgiving dinner but can be a fantastic, memorable way to create new traditions.

Potential downsides of a Thanksgiving RV trip (and how to deal with them)

Carrots for a colorful Thanksgiving dinner *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Being away from family and friends

If you’re used to spending the holiday with a large group of friends and family, this can be a major factor in deciding whether or not to take a Thanksgiving RV trip. Thanks to modern technology, it’s easier than ever to stay connected with loved ones. Consider scheduling a FaceTime or Zoom call at some point during the day so everyone can say hello.

You can also plan a traditional Thanksgiving meal when you’re all together in person even if it’s nowhere near the actual holiday. Who knows, this could become a new favorite tradition.

Thanksgiving dinner? *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Wanting to prep a traditional meal but not having enough space

Whipping up a Thanksgiving meal can be challenging even in a single-family home so there’s no denying it’s difficult in an RV. However, it’s not at all impossible.

Pie for Thanksgiving dinner *© Rex Vogel, all rights reserved*

Think about what you realistically have fridge and oven space for and come up with creative ways to prepare and cook everything else. For example, maybe you purchase a pie from a local bakery or you cook some dishes over the fire pit or grill.

And if table/counter space is an issue make use of any surfaces you have outside the RV. There’s no rule saying you can’t decorate a picnic table or folding chairs for Thanksgiving.

Bad weather

Late November can be dicey weather-wise, no matter where you are. Plan ahead and have some day-of backup plans in case inclement weather forces you to stay inside. Do your Thanksgiving grocery shopping in advance to eliminate the possibility that you’re short one or two key ingredients and if you’re planning to dine outside have an indoor layout in mind so there’s plenty of space to accommodate everyone.

Related article: Thanksgiving & Our RV Lifestyle: Giving Thanks

Do something different this Thanksgiving, Go RVing! Take your family off the Wi-Fi craze for a few days and enjoy a nearly work-free meal prep and enjoyable conversation with the whole family. It will be an experience you never forget!

Worth Pondering…

Give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day but every day of your life. Appreciate and never take for granted all that you have.

—Catherine Pulsifer

Christmas Music Inspires and Brings Cheer during the Pandemic

Celebrate the most wonderful time of the year with the best Christmas songs of all time

Christmas delivers more traditions, festivities, and entertainment than all other holidays combined.

During the Christmas season, we sing traditional carols and hymns. In churches and homes, many set up nativity scenes, a practice created in 1223 by St. Francis of Assisi.

Merry Christmas © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved

We also participate in secular holiday traditions. Originally modeled on a fourth-century bishop, St. Nicholas of Myra, Santa Claus has long been an icon of the Christmas season. We set up and decorate spruce and fir trees in our living rooms, attach stockings to the mantle, send out Christmas cards, buy sleigh loads of presents, and tell the little ones about Santa’s elves and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

The world of arts and entertainment exuberantly joins these festivities. We read books such as Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and share poems with our children like Clement Moore’s The Night Before Christmas or Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Hollywood has pumped out scores of Christmas movies ranging from classics like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street” to comedies, religious stories, and Hallmark romances.

Meanwhile, families practice their own holiday customs. That newly wedded couple must decide whether they’re going to open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Some families watch “A Christmas Story,” while others stick to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Some repeat the Thanksgiving menu of turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes for their holiday meal while others enjoy roast beef, goose, or ethnic foods.

Another Christmas tradition: The Story of the Poinsettia

And then, of course, there is the music.

Songs, songs, and more songs

It’s not really Christmas until the gang from Pentatonix releases new material and this year they’ve stretched the definition of Christmas material.

The group offers classics like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” and also tackle songs not often caroled like Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and Joni Mitchell’s “River.” And then they give “I Saw Three Ships” and “Frosty the Snowman” a rhythmic beat.

There are so many Christmas songs and so many different artists who have recorded them that certain radio stations fill their December air time with this fare without strain or repetition. Load copies of all these recordings into Santa’s sleigh and even that bearded wonder and his 12 reindeer might have trouble making lift-off.

Some of these compositions are more than 1,000 years old while others have popped up in just the past decade. Some celebrate the coming of a savior like “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”, O Holy Night”, and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Others center our attention on the symbols of the season like “O Christmas Tree” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Some take a turn toward romance, as in “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and “Christmas Every Day.” There are even silly Christmas songs: “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

And you don’t need to be Irish to enjoy “Christmas in Killarney”:

The holly green, the ivy green/The prettiest picture you’ve ever seen/Is Christmas in Killarney/With all of the folks at home/It’s nice you know, to kiss your beau/while cuddling under the mistletoe/And Santa Claus, you know of course/Is one of the boys from home
The door is always open/The neighbors pay a call/And Father John, before he’s gone/Will bless the house and all/Our Hearts are light, our spirits bright/We’ll celebrate our joy tonight/It’s Christmas in Killarney/With all of the folks at home

Songs and carols and how they came to be

Behind many of these songs are intriguing stories of their creation and their meaning. Here are just a few of these histories.

Another Christmas tradition: Pecan Pralines a Sweet Tradition

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” has its roots in the monasteries of the ninth century. That early version was in Latin, of course, and is just as beautiful as the English we sing today. Originally, monks or nuns chanted verses and psalms from the Old Testament anticipating the arrival of a savior. Discipleship Ministries of the Methodist Church offers this interesting observation on the original arrangement. Each of the antiphons (a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain) began with the words below:

O Sapentia (Wisdom)
O Adonai (Hebrew word for God)
O Radix Jesse (stem or root of Jesse)
O Clavis David (key of David)
O Oriens (dayspring)
O Rex genitium (King of the Gentiles)
O Emmanuel

By the seventh antiphon—O Emmanuel—the first letter of these words read in opposite order gave listeners an acrostic “Ero Cras,” which means “I will be present tomorrow.”

Another song from the Middle Ages, “In Dulci Jubilo,” we now know as “Good Christian Men, Rejoice.” German folklore holds that Heinrich Seuse composed this carol sometime around 1328 after he had heard angels singing it.

Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht

“Silent Night” has a story that is almost as beautiful as the carol itself.

Another Christmas tradition: The Holiday Season Favorite Veggie: Sweet Potato or Yam?

Just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a young Austrian priest, Joseph Mohr, took a walk on a winter’s evening and was struck by the peace and beauty of the snow-covered village below him. He wrote down the words for “Silent Night,” and two years later, in need of a hymn for Christmas Eve, he paid a visit to his friend Franz Gruber, a school teacher who was also the church’s choirmaster and asked him to compose the music for his lyrics.

That night, at Midnight Mass, Gruber and Father Mohr, playing on the guitar, gave the world one of its most beloved carols.

Eventually, “Silent Night” was translated into more than 300 languages and is today sung around the world. One fascinating historical note: During World War I’s Christmas Eve truce of 1914, soldiers from both sides of no man’s land gathered and sang the carol in English and German.

Secular Songs of the Season

The past 100 years have seen an explosion of non-religious holiday songs. Of these, “White Christmas” remains one of the most popular, and again the music comes with a special story.

The Russian-born Irving Berlin who gave us such hits as “God Bless America” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” also wrote “White Christmas.” Though the Jewish composer didn’t celebrate this holiday, some have speculated he may have written the song in memory of his 3-week-old son who died in 1928 on Christmas Day. For years afterward, Berlin and his wife annually visited their son’s grave on that day. Certainly, the opening lines and the slow, rather melancholy tune might point to such a loss:

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas/Just like the ones I used to know/Where the treetops glisten and children listen/ To hear sleigh bells in the snow

In 1941, Bing Crosby first brought the newly published “White Christmas” to the airwaves just days after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. During the war, whenever Crosby appeared overseas to entertain the troops, the soldiers, again and again, requested this song.

“I hesitated about doing it because invariably it caused such a nostalgic yearning among the men, that it made them sad,” Crosby said in an interview. “Heaven knows, I didn’t come that far to make them sad. For this reason, several times I tried to cut it out of the show, but these guys just hollered for it.”

Another Christmas tradition: Fruitcake: National Joke or Tasty Christmas Tradition

Those men wanted that reminder of home and what they were fighting for.

Cultural Bonds

If we explore the origins and histories of such songs and carols, we find that many of them come with these special stories. In “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” for example, some believe that the gifts mentioned in the song, from a partridge in a pear tree to 12 drummers drumming, refer to certain symbols of the Catholic faith while others contend this strange array of presents derives from a child’s memory game.

While learning these stories can be fun and instructive, it’s the music we know and love. It’s a small bit of that glue that binds us together as a people. We would be hard-pressed to find a child, or an adult for that matter, who had never heard of Rudolph or The Grinch. Whatever our religious beliefs, we’re familiar with “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.” We may not know the words, but we can hum along with songs like “Little Drummer Boy” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

Another Christmas tradition: O Christmas Tree, Don’t Fall Off my SUV

Merry Christmas © Rex Vogel, all rights reserved MERA

How mainstream is your taste in Christmas music?

Compare your faves to the most-streamed Christmas songs on Spotify this holiday season:

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey (written and recorded in 1994)
“Last Christmas” by Wham! (another 1994 recording)
“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (written and recorded in 1951)
“Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms (recorded in 1957)
“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee (recorded in 1958)

To my readers, I’ll conclude by way of one more song title: “We Wish You a Merry Christmas!”

Worth Pondering…

Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!

―Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas