Oh goodness, I could never pick just ONE....
For local reasons: “Christmas in the Northwest” by Brenda Kutz White. and “Evergreen Christmas” by Loni Rose.
To Dance to: “All I want For Christmas is You”, Mariah Carey
For the sheer beauty of the arrangements: “Traditions of Christmas” and “Stille Nacht (Silent Night)”, Mannheim Steamroller.
However, if I could pick one, I’d have to do it for personal reasons, and I’ll have to tell a story....
On December 24th, 1906, in small shack near Brant Rock, Massachusetts, Canadian-born Professor Reginald Fessenden was preparing to run his experiment as night fell across the eastern seaboard of the US.
Out at sea, an unknown number of ships were cruising throught the night upon the North Atlantic. Freighters, trawlers, fishing boats...and many of them with the new contraption called a ‘wireless’. Using Morse code, the invention of Gugliermo Marconi allowed ships and land to talk to each other in the dots and dashes of Morse.
You can imagine it...a young radioman, pulling watch on a frieghter on the North Atlantic, a day or so out of Boston. It’s late, and the ship’s cook has brought by a steaming mug of coffee to the young man to help him through his watch. He sips the mug, listening to the dots and dashes as news travels through the ether.
All of a sudden, he sits bolt upright, almost spilling his coffee. He can’t believe what he’s hearing....he frantically calls for the captain and whoever is within earshot. Within moments, the small radio room is crowded with men as the radioman explains excitedly what he’s hearing. The men in the room hush as they gather ‘round the radioman’s headphones, turned outward so they can all faintly hear...
A human voice.
Professor Fessenden, from his lab in Brant Rock, was making the world’s first broadcast of human voice and music. He gave a Christmas greeting, read the Bible passage of the Christmas story out of Luke, chapter 2, and then picked up his violin and played the very first song ever heard on radio...”O Holy Night”. (Betcha didn’t know that!)
He ended with a wish of a joyous New Year, and that was it. On December 26th, he repeated his broadcast.
Now, Prof. Fessenden didn’t get the credit he should’ve for this world-changing feat until the 1960’s, when someone doing some research on him came across the records of what he did that Christmas Eve so long ago. And, while Marconi got the credit for radio, the true credit goes to Fessenden for allowing mankind to talk over radio.
So this next Christmas Eve, if you hear ‘O Holy Night’ over your radio, think of the man who, 101 years ago this year, made it all possible.
(So you know, every Christmas Eve, I raise a glass to Reg Fessenden. I was a deejay for about 9 years at a radio station in eastern Washington state. And, as a deejay, I have to give credit where it was due. Technically...without him, I might not have had a job.)