Music

One of my personal seasonal traditions involves listening to certain music. I've gotten lots of Christmas music through the years, as gifts, as purchases I've made, a Christmas countdown that we recorded from the radio during the first few years of our marriage, and I even have a recording of the two Christmas albums that I used to hear most often as a child. About 15 years ago, Bill digitised all of our music, so we would still have access to it, even without a turntable, tape player, or CD player. I've been listening to some of it every year for more than half a century!

Over 20 years ago, when we were living in Fairbanks, we used to listen to a show on the radio called Music from the Hearts of Space, which played a lot of music that wasn't mainstream. There was a lot of ambient music and other sort of  'quiet' music. In Fairbanks, at least, it was on in the latter part of Sunday night. It was on that show that I first heard of Loreena McKennitt and I have loved her music ever since. Her song, Snow, is one of my favourite Christmas songs, even though I usually listen to it in November. Here is a link to a video of a live performance of the song. I think it's a bit over 4 minutes long. It's a beautiful song--one of many by her. It is on her album To Drive the Cold Winter Away, which is an excellent album. There is a slightly different version on her EP A Winter's Garden, which is 5 songs for the season--that is also wonderful.