Sam Burnham, Curator @C_SamBurnham We’re once again in the midst of the Christmas season. It’s a season that we look forward to and that I always hope to celebrate well but always struggle to engage. We’ve made our world so hectic and intense that it is hard to stop, to focus on what matters, and to truly be in the holiday spirit. I often find myself in a spirit more like Scrooge before his conversion. While I’m not hostile to Christmas, I’m not enjoying it until it has past and it is too late. So I have to be intentional. I have to focus on things that matter - family and faith primarily. I thought I’d share some of what I do to get my mind and heart right. Music plays a role in everything for me. While I don’t play an instrument and lack any semblance of a singing voice, I love music and my tastes are pretty broad. But at Christmas I’m pretty traditional. So here are a few of my go-to musical works. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Annie Lennox a few years ago, Annie Lennox released a Christmas album. Lennox is incredibly gifted and the entire album is worth a listen but this one song stands out to me. The song focuses on the story of the birth of Christ and the announcement the angels made before shepherds, proclaiming the Incarnation - Messiah. In the video, Lennox ties many old Anglo-Saxon traditions and shows the way Christianity and Christmas would have been presented in Britain long ago. Concerto Grosso in G Minor, Opus 6, Number 8 “Christmas Concerto” - Arcangelo Corelli I first heard this piece played as an opening overture to a performance of Handel’s Messiah. I’ve always been partial to strings and while I don’t understand the technical merits of this work, I find it stunning. It's a shorter work, only about 14 minutes, but well worth the time. Messiah - George Frideric Handel This quintessential Christmas opus is really an Easter celebration that has been adapted to Christmas. It fits both. So I just enjoy it during two seasons instead of just one. This one is long. It makes good ambient music in the house while you're doing whatever but is also stirring enough to hold your interest as a concert. A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols - The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge This event was first held in 1918, after the dark spectre of World War I had finally passed. In the aftermath, the Festival was introduced as a “more imaginative approach to worship.” It was broadcasted for the first time in 1928 and is now available all over the world, including on GPB radio in Georgia. The broadcast begins at 10 am Eastern. I know I have fancier tastes in Christmas music than a lot of Georgians. And that’s ok. I wanted to share some of what I love but I also invite you to share your favorites below. Tell us what music, or other traditions, help you get in the Christmas spirit. Most of all, take time to stop, truly absorb some of the season. Take time to appreciate it. Share it with us, with others, with yourself. Merry Christmas! (Click here for our suggestions for Christmas viewing - film & television)
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Sam Burnham, Curator @C_SamBurnham As I’m writing this I’m sipping coffee from my new US Navy mug and occasionally gazing over to take in a bit of the military honor guard posted at the casket of President George H.W. Bush as he lies in state in the Capitol rotunda. I havent written much lately. Oh, we’ve updated ABG CFB but that stuff writes itself. I haven’t written here. It’s been a week since I dropped my oldest son off in Atlanta to ship to Great Lakes, Illinois for Navy boot camp. Somewhere in that experience I fell into a funk. It sapped my creativity and left me feeling a bit blue. Some time today that realization hit me. I gotta get my mind right, gotta get back on track. So that’s what I’m doing here. I have had the blessing and honor of raising three of my heroes. The fact that my oldest will now be seen as a hero in the minds of many Americans is not lost on me. He has overcome a lot to wind up where he is. But he sees this as a calling, a duty that was his to carry out, so he signed up. I could not be more proud. But with that pride comes sacrifice. I already miss the sound of his footsteps coming down the stairs. I miss sitting at dinner and seeing him across the table from me. I miss him sitting in the living room in the evening and asking me questions about any number of topics. And in this period of no communication, I miss just knowing how his day went. No doubt he’s entered a new stage of life. As he steps into adulthood, there will be days I dong hear from him. That’s how life works. It’s early in this phase and it’s easy for me to still see that little boy with the chubby cheeks and the love of deep blue water. What he really is is a strong and fit man who is off on his own and proving to Uncle Sam that he deserves to serve in his Navy as a sailor. So now I stand up. Now I do what over 200 years of Navy dads have done. I brush off despair and I move forward. I finish raising his brothers, continue caring for his mother, and I prepare to attend Pass In Review where I will see him again, this time clothed in the uniform he’s dreamed of since childhood. And that thought makes me happy. |
Sam B.Historian, self-proclaimed gentleman, agrarian-at-heart, & curator extraordinaire Social MediaCategories
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