December 25 – Wednesday – Mitch Miller and the Gang – Holiday Sing Along With Mitch

So I cheated. Next up should have been the first Paul McCartney solo album, but hey, how many people still have their parent’s old Mitch Miller Christmas album, and isn’t this appropriate? It is my chance to celebrate the holiday and says happy holidays to you.

Mitch Miller was a conductor and producer who had a show on when I was a mere tot. Words come with the record because how else would you sing along? On the show, you would follow the bouncing ball as it led you word by word through whichever ditty was being performed. Households throughout the nation were singing along with Mitch. Though the show featured singers like the lovely, young Leslie Uggams, this album is all the men’s chorus, which was the mainstay of the show. It also is a pretty fun album that consists only of the non-religious holiday/winter songs about Santa, Rudolph and Frosty. Does anyone even get “The Twelve Days of Christmas?” My favorite holiday song – “Winter Wonderland.” My mother’s was Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas.”

But this doesn’t so much bring back memories of Christmas for me, it reminds me of evenings sitting in the den (or the playroom as it was referred to in my house though my brother and I would soon take over much of the basement) with my brother watching television on a big old box of a black and white TV set. He’s been gone more than 28 years now, and I’ll never stop missing him and being grateful for the time we had together. Merry Christmas, Davey.

Anyway, Max got catnip for Christmas, and I treated myself to a new set of multi-colored Pilot G-2 07 pens.