OK gang.... what are your favorite Christmas songs? Being south of the equator now it does not feel quite like Christmas... so I am listening to Christmas songs to help and remind me it is that time of the year.
I have many favorites.... but probably if I had to pick one it would be "O Holy Night". I love Johnny Mathis since it reminds me of Christmas's growing up since my mother always listened to his albums this time of the year, but also love Mannheim Steamroller. So many songs. My mother always cries when she sings Silent Night.
I have a book on the origin of Christmas songs and this is an excerpt regarding "O Holy Night" I thought was interesting....
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Reginald Fessenden a 33 yr old university professor in Pittsburgh and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison did something long thought impossible. Using a new type of generator, he spoke into a microphone and for the first time in history, a man's voice was broadcast over the airwaves: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed".
Shocked radio operators on ships and astonished wireless owners at newspapers sat slack-jawed as their normal coded impulses heard over tiny speakers were interrupted by a professor reading from the gospel of Luke. To the few who caught the broadcast, it must have seemed like a miracle - hearing a voice somehow turned into electrical waves and transmitted to those far away.
Fessenden was probably unaware of the sensation he was causing on ships and in offices; he couldn't know that men and women were rushing to their wireless units to catch this Christmas Eve miracle. Yet after finishing his recitation of the birth of Christ, Fessenden picked up his violin and played "O Holy Night", the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves. When the carol ended, so did the broadcast - but not before music had found a new medium that would take it around the world.
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Tim
