Still Still

Saturday, I went to my parents’ house to pick up a couple of items, including a copy of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” My dad pulled book after book out of the coffee table storage–books of Christmas music that were mine. Books I had forgotten I owned.

So yesterday, part of my grading procrastination involved playing Christmas music. I’m always a fan of the hipper songs–the traditional carols in our hymn book don’t always do it for me. But bust out a rendition of “Bring A Torch, Jeannette Isabella,” or “Stars Were Gleaming,” and I can get all Christmas spirit-y.

So as I flipped through a book that boasted 100 Christmas Favorites, I was happy to find “Gesu, Bambino”–one of my all-time favorites. I played it twice. And then I looked for a copy on my iPod.

I don’t have it.

As I looked for a version to buy on Amazon, I found a Christmas album by the University of Utah Singers. I scanned the list, and one title made me smile.

The one Christmas song that is filled with so many memories, the kind of memories that just can’t be put into words. Because in all truth, if you weren’t part of it, you just can’t understand how it felt to sing it every Christmas in ugly pink or teal dresses, surrounded by your best friends.

It’s the Christmas song that simultaneously makes me smile and cry. I smile at how hearing it feels like a warm, comfortable blanket, and I cry because I miss my two best friends so much. It’s only when I hear this song that I wonder if the reason I don’t think about them more often is because I’d be in a terminal funk about our thousand-mile separation.

It’s my favorite Christmas song, the exact arrangement that we sang in choir, the arrangement that I loved singing with alumni, and that I sang as an alum, the arrangement that I can still sing perfectly. I hope you enjoy it, too.