Our BetterMost Community > The Holiday Forum
Happy Christmas!
CellarDweller:
Written on Christmas Eve, huh? Seems appropriate.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on January 05, 2019, 01:46:29 pm ---Written on Christmas Eve, huh? Seems appropriate.
--- End quote ---
The story I read somewhere a long time ago was that the organ in the church in a place called Oberndorf, Austria, was out of commission at Christmas, 1818. The priest, Joseph Mohr, was inspired by a recent visit he had made to a family with a newborn child. He wrote a poem (I guess that's what you'd call it), and the church organist, Franz Gruber, set it to music and played it on guitar at Midnight Mass.
I won't vouch for the truth or accuracy of that story, but it does lead me to one of my all-time favorite Christmas memories. I forget if it was my first or second Christmas in Philadelphia, but it happened at the staff Christmas party at the historical society, where I was working at the time. The book conservator was a sort-of unreconstructed hippie, with shoulder-length hair gone to salt-and-pepper, a similar mustache and goatee, and a baritone voice (yeah, I found him quite sexy). He also played guitar. He brought his guitar to the party, and he played Silent Night while a bunch of us stood around him and sang it. Considering that the hymn was actually written for guitar, I got goosebumps while we were singing it.
CellarDweller:
CellarDweller:
Front-Ranger:
Thank you, friend, for "giving us the boot". Merry Christmas!
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