Christmas

Last night was a really nice Christmas Eve. My oldest son can now play the violin enough so that he can play the melody, I can play piano, and everyone else can sing whatever part in whatever language they want. One of many reasons I love my family--they are happy to accommodate carols in Latin, macaronic carols in German and Latin, Old English, German, modern English, whatever. It was really nice. I think I'm getting a bit Latin American about Christmas--Christmas Eve is sort of the climax  of the holiday for me. It's the one time I can get everyone to (sort of) focus on the birth of Christ and the whole point of the holiday. After that, it's all kids popping out of bed and getting up at five and tearing open presents and eating chocolate until everyone just sort of collapses in the middle of the floor. All in all it was a nice Christmas, though. The 2YO, who doesn't even remember last year, was particularly ecstatic about everything.

I realize this is music for the wrong liturgical day, but it also happens to be the opening music of the movie Shadowlands, which is about CS Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia. Which is rather tied to Christmas in my mind. And, it's lovely and peaceful and the kind of feeling I want to take from Christmas (despite the sleepless night, early morning, and general chaos of present-opening). So, here is George Fenton's Veni Sancte Spiritus. I can't find a downloadable recording, but I rather like this recording from YouTube: