Song for the Bleak Midwinter

I miss singing Christmas carols. One of the most wonderful things about my childhood was that there was always music, at home, school, or at friends' houses. Someone was always playing piano and singing, especially at holidays. I realize now that this is not the norm for everyone - and if I want carols in my life now, I will have to seek them out. People are not out "wassailing" as they are in Dickens novels or old MGM films - or perhaps they are, on Beacon Hill or some toney area of Boston, but they certainly aren't in Somerville.

I will also have to purchase a piano at some point, which seems rather daunting to my debt-riddled budget, but I shouldn't let cost get in the way. After all, during one of the bleakest financial moments of my childhood, I remember my mother went out and bought a piano for 10 dollars - yes, 10 dollars (in 1972) - at a yard sale. It was an old upright (what brand? i don't remember), and completely out of tune, which didn't seem to stop any of us from banging on it and singing our little hearts out (we were most likely out of tune ourselves, after all).

Anyway, this was one of my favorite Christmas carols that I sang growing up. Not exactly cheerful - and it gets rotely religious after this first verse - but it has a melancholy, indeed doleful, quality to it that always pierced through my bones. And I love the phrase, Snow on snow, because that's exactly what it feels like to look outside while it is snowing: snow on snow on snow on snow, like an endless loop of white.


In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on Snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.