Music For the Festive Season. . .

The cover of one of our three favorite "traditional" Christmas collections that we enjoy every year here at Totleigh-in-the-Wold.

Tomorrow is the first day of Advent, and the Christmas festival follows not far behind. While I prefer not to rush into things, it's hard not to begin thinking about the celebration and enjoying the small flourishes that go along with it like, for example, the music related to Christmas.

While I also enjoy traditional English carols along with more recent seasonal tunes by The Kinks, Greg Lake, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Andy Williams (along with holiday cheese by Dean Martin, Paul McCartney, and, yes, even WHAM!), in my view, you simply cannot go wrong with traditional German Christmas music. It provides a quiet and calm antidote to the overplayed schlock that clogs the airwaves at this time of year.

Three of our favorite collections (on CD. . . How 20th century of us!) include:

1) Weihnachten: A German Christmas
2) Christmas in Vienna: The Vienna Boys' Choir
3) German Christmas Music: Kammerorchester by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach

All are fairly easy to find and order online. Start with Amazon, the most obvious choice these days. Listening to these collections, you'll of course notice a few well-known melodies along with much that is less familiar though no less beautiful in the form of choral and instrumental music.

A very fitting soundtrack for Advent and the coming Christmas season without having to fall back on the likes of Moriah Carey, Whitney Houston, Cold Play, Taylor Swift, or the cast of Glee, or whoever it was who recorded that dreadful tear-jerker Christmas Shoes. The last of which the less said the better.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

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Classic Style

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