Merry Christmas from Canada

[commodorified]

If We Make It Through December, Holly Cole Warning: feels.

First Christmas, Stan Rogers Warning: SO MANY FEELS.

At Last I'm Ready For Christmas, Stan Rogers

Christmas Must Be Tonight, Blue Rodeo

Huron Carol (Wendat, English and French), Heather Dale

Les Anges Dans Nos Campagnes, Bruce Cockburn

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings, Barenaked Ladies feat. Sarah McLaughlan.

Comments

[graydon]

Yeah.

AND NOT THE HAPPY FEELS.

(thank you!)

I can't find a decent version of "Il est né le divin enfant". (Annie Lennox's doesn't benefit from the intro. Siouxsie and the Banshees uses a non-canonical tune. Many choral versions are squeaky. Most don't sound like French speakers. Edith Piaf's version is from 1940-something and the recording's lamentable. There might be a Les prêtres version without the apparently compulsory feel-good fru-fru detracting from teh singing, but not obviously on youtube.)

Which really means I can't find the version Radio Canada plays. Oh well.

[commodorified]

First Christmas has acquired ... bittersweet feels for me. I have yet to get through a Christmas as an adult without a good cry for one reason or another, or one person or another, and that song tells me that I'm not alone and I'm going to make it through and I'm not broken because as much as I love Christmas, it's hard.

[graydon]

I hear that song as being about the inevitable, inescapable, and irreversible loss of home and family.

Which is a different take, to be sure.

(At this point in my life, Christmas is after "April" and "August" as least-favourite times of year. Which is another difference.)

I hope this Christmas has gone, and will go, better for you in all particulars than has been customary.