Christmas scenes

A Festival of Carols in Brass; Philadelphia Brass Ensemble

The first time I ever encountered the word “unique” was at the opening of the Brookings Mall some time in the mid-1970’s. The Cinema Unique offered another film option to what the State Theater and the College Theater had to offer downtown. I thought that you pronounced it “you-nee-cue”. I was roundly ridiculed by the family on that one and I NEVER pronounced it wrong again.

In addition to the Cinema Unique, the Brookings Mall offered White Mart, Cover to Cover, Shriver’s, The Optical Shop, Hy-Vee Food Store, Perkin’s, U.S. Army recruiters, U.S. Navy recruiters and a host of specialty shops. When the mall first opened, I looked forward to going inside to see all of these stores in one place. It was practical. We didn’t have to watch for traffic inside. And I liked running up the wheelchair ramps.

As Christmas approached, I couldn’t wait to see the decorations at the mall and to test drive the brand new Christmas shopping venue. The first time we went Christmas shopping that year, the plan was announced that we would go to the mall first (Yayyyyy!!) and finish up downtown (Okay, whatever). The decorations at the mall couldn’t have thrilled me more, and D. and I had fun racing around from store to store without having to go outside.

After the mall, Dad parked the car downtown and said, “Everybody check your watches and let’s meet back here in one hour. Then let’s go have a hamburger.” Well, I spent the first fifteen minutes grousing because we weren’t at the mall. But the more time I spent downtown, the more I liked it with the outdoor lights and decorations, the snowfall, better places to hide when you don’t want to be seen by a family member when you’re buying their gift … and a much more accurate winter, Christmas scene.

Christmas imagery is so powerful; those mental snapshots that portray the quintessential Yuletide setting: the tree with a thousand lights, the sled going a hundred miles down the hill, the holiday dinner table laden with cranberries, mashed potatoes, the Christmas goose and chestnut dressing, the outside of a church with its stained glass windows all aglow, a horse-drawn sleigh, a snowman with a red scarf, a toy train, a Raggedy-Ann doll, a wreath on the door, stockings on the fireplace mantel … and Christmas cookies, Christmas pies, Christmas cakes, eggnog, hot chocolate and candy canes …..

How about this one: a group of carolers in Dickensian English attire on the street corner – or the Salvation Army brass choir stationed outside the department store? Yeah, this is the one that revs my Christmas scene engine. No, I never saw them on Main Street in Brookings, South Dakota, on our Christmas shopping night so long ago. But I can put them there and it’s just as good.

Before there was a Canadian Brass and before Mannheim Steamroller broke all records with their Christmas albums, the hottest LP on the Christmas market came by way of the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble and its repertoire of twenty-five Christmas carols. Outselling virtually all of the regular orchestral recordings made by the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Eugene Ormandy in the 1960’s, the members of the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble invested their efforts, here, in an expert blend of sound and orchestration, rather than in laborious and superficial pageantry. When they play each carol, they seem to want you to sing along, playing one verse after another with no interlude in between, indicating the conclusion by slowing down at the end.

Just the way Christmas carols are supposed to be sung. How unique!

Credits: To Nathaniel Currier and James Merritt Ives, for truly commanding winter-time and Christmas imagery.

Only five months before Christmas!