It's Coming On Christmas...Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? I'm pretty sure it's happened to most everyone. An annoying jingle from a commercial on TV runs incessantly somewhere in the back of our minds as we go about our daily tasks. I guess that's the point, right? The advertisers want you to remember their products when you're walking through the supermarket. As you're pushing your cart through Safeway, your subconcious begins to sing... "Mama makes brights white like the sunlight, Mama's got the magic of Chlorox 2" See...It works!

I once had the song "Fire" by Bruce Springsteen stuck in my head for what seemed like years. It's an okay song, I guess. But, the problem was that I didn't hear Springsteen's voice or my own performing the song. That would have been a bit too sane for my twisted mind. Instead, it was Elmer Fudd. Yep...that's right. I had watched an HBO Comedy Special featuring Robin Williams who sang the song as Elmer Fudd. I must admit that it was rather funny, but the replay that occurred in my head was torture. I'm almost fearful to give the matter any further attention, lest the song should begin playing again in that mysterious manner in which such things happen.

I shouldn't make light of the power of music to captivate us. In fact, music has been for me a constant companion since the days of my youth. I have a pretty extensive personal library of recordings on CD, cassette, and even vinyl. I refer to this music lovingly as my life's soundtrack because in lots of ways that's exactly what it is. Many of my most precious memories have a song or songs associated with them. And, I find that certain music can more easily capture a mood or moment than mere words can. Seriously, I cannot imagine my life without music, nor would I ever want to.

Lately, the song "River" by Joni Mitchell has been running through my mind. I haven't listened to the song for quite awhile, but I remember the opening lyric distinctly. "It's coming on Christmas. They're cutting down trees. They're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on."

While the song itself really speaks of a lost love and doesn't have a whole lot to do with Christmas, it seems to be the song that is calling out to me this Christmas season. I was just thinking the other day about how much I love this time of year. Not just the holidays, but winter in general. I have many fond childhood memories of winters in South Dakota. Winters are much colder on the Great Plains than they are here in California. The snows fly, and the winds are truly bone-chilling. And, the winter is long, sometimes extending into late March and early April. In fact, I remember blizzards that kept my sisters and me out of school in the early spring.

It's funny how the things we miss or take for granted as children become the "stuff that nostalgia is made of" as adults. Although I love my adult life very much, I sometimes find myself missing that inexplicable feeling of comfort and contentment that I felt as a child, snuggled in my bed under a quilt on a cold winter night and just knowing that I was safe and sound in Mom's house. I remember Mom and Dad playing board games with my sisters and me when a blizzard had cut-off the electricity, leaving us without a TV. Mom would bake bread or cookies to warm the house because we had a gas oven, and we'd drink hot cocoa by the gallons. There was something about the cold outside that made me so aware of the warmth of home. I'm not talking about the coziness of being sheltered by a house, but something even better than that. As children, we take that feeling for granted, and as adults, we long for it. At least I do. I know that there are times when I'd give almost anything to just curl up on Mom's sofa on a cold Sunday morning.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm getting older that causes me to wax sentimental today. Maybe it's the time of year. Maybe I'm feeling homesick, missing the snowy Black Hills that I learned to love so well. Maybe it's the realization that my younger sister will be deployed to Iraq for the second time after Christmas. Could be all of those things in combination, I suppose. We are complex beings, are we not? Whatever the reason, I have learned over the years that it is possible to simply sit with our thoughts and not analyze them. While there is something melancholic about my recollections from the past, I am content to wrap these feelings around myself and cherish them.

It's coming on Christmas...They're cutting down trees...They're putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace... Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on...

But it don't snow here...It stays pretty green...I'm going to make a lot of money...Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene... Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on...

I wish I had a river...