Stan Zabka’s Classic Christmas Eve Song

December 24th, 2016

For those unfamiliar with the name, Stan Zabka, think Americana and you’ll hear on this Christmas Eve his appropriately-named holiday classic (and one of my favorite holiday tunes) – Christmas Eve In My Home Town.

Resplendent with home town images and themes, especially as it is performed by the iconic Kate Smith, the carol was written during a very difficult time when American soldiers were engaged in another foreign war. Stan Zabka, along with Don Upton, another ex-GI, wrote Christmas Eve in My Home Town in 1951 at the height of the Korean War. The song became an immediate hit with soldiers in the field and sailors at sea, eventually earning sobriquets as The Soldier’s Christmas Song, and the Official Christmas Song of Radio Free Europe during the Cold War years.

In 1966 during the Vietnam War, Kate Smith wanted to do something special for American troops by recording 36 individual messages on the Armed Forces Network, which then aired them around the world wherever our troops were stationed or on ships at sea. In her folksy and heart-warming voice, she addressed her armed forces audience: “Hello boys and girls, this is Kate Smith coming to you via Armed Forced Radio with a greeting to let you know that we are all thinking of you. I have recorded a song especially for you. It was written by a couple of ex-GIs, Stan Zabka and Don Upton, and you will be hearing it soon. Its title is Christmas Eve in My Home Town. And boys and girls, Christmas won’t be the same without you, but you can bet that you will be thought of, and prayed for, and loved just as much as if you were all here. I would like to say Merry Christmas to you and may God bless you all.”

On another occasion when our troops entered Kuwait in September 1990, the U.S. government forbade Western Christmas music to be broadcast because Kuwait was a Muslim country. However, it was Kate Smith’s special Armed Forces Network message and introduction of the song on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show that convinced the government to lift its restriction. What may have also helped to get the message out was the affable Zabka, a three-time winning composer, musician, and director, once served as an associate director with NBC-NY and for five years had a close working relationship with Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show.

This Christmas Eve if you want to experience the warm glow of the season and the sound of a more innocent time in American history, richly illuminated by the one and only Kate Smith, tune into Zabka’s nostalgic classic: Christmas Eve in My Home Town.  His homey lyrics truly capture the spirit of the season and the nostalgic long ago, an essential ingredient of AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CLASSICS.

There’s so much to remember!
No wonder I remember
Christmas Eve in My Home Town.

Carols in the square,
Laughter everywhere,
Couples kissing under the mistletoe.
I can’t help reminiscing,
Knowing I’ll be missing
Christmas Eve in My Home Town.
Nothing can erase
Mem’ries I embrace
Those familiar footprints upon the snow!
There’s so much to remember!
No wonder I remember
Christmas Eve in My Home Town.

I’d like to be there,
Trimming the tree there,
And there’s a chance that I might!
I can hear singing,
Steeple bells ringing
Noel and Silent Night.
Wise men journeyed far
Guided by a star,
But, though I’m not a wise man,
This I know:
Through dreams and just pretending,
I’m there and I’ll be spending
Christmas Eve in My Home Town.

© Big Island Music, Inc.

Stan Zabka at the piano

Stan Zabka at the piano

 

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Amazing Christmas Memories for World War II Veterans

December 7th, 2016

What makes for an amazing Christmas present for folks of “The Greatest Generation?”

For these wonderful grandparents, parents, and friends who bequeathed to us the Baby Boomer era, maybe an amazing gift is simply one that brings about a ready smile and a moist gleam in the eye. Maybe it is one that rekindles memories of their Christmas Past and comes wrapped with nostalgic pictures and favorite holiday sounds. (Think Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Scribner’s, The Saturday Evening Post, or Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Gene Autry and you get the picture.)

Maybe, just maybe, an amazing gift is one that stirs the emotional impulse of elderly veterans to reach out and tightly hug children and grandchildren.

Despite such a tender display, forever etched as a priceless moment in time, it may not mask the betrayal of strength that once allowed World War II veterans to wend their way through the years. With the dwindling of time, moreover, these cherished moments may become more rare, or lamented as lost opportunities, and even more so with the passing of 450 World War II veterans each day.

Today, the 75th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor, presents an opportunity to show your appreciation for our World War II veterans. If you are searching for an amazing Christmas present for your veteran loved ones, look no further. American Christmas Classics, a richly illustrated 2-in-1 Christmas music gift box collection, was dedicated to “The Greatest Generation” which gave so much and asked so little.

With YOUR PURCHASE of the amazing American Christmas Classics, or Best-Loved Christmas Carols, Ron Clancy and Christmas Classics Ltd. WILL MATCH IT BY DONATING our best-selling box sets to World War II veterans and military organizations that support them. Both are available here at www.christmasclassics.com

 

American Christmas Classics

American Christmas Classics

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A Special Christmas Music Gift

December 19th, 2015

We all love to get into the Christmas season and set the right mood for love and merry making. This is also the right time to look for special gifts and send them to our loved ones just to let them know how much they mean to us. Just as we are reminded by the timeless hit of the Little Drummer Boy, no gift will ever be ideal for Christmas than the gift of a real Christmas classic. But unfortunately, it is a little bit of a task to locate and find such gifts and send them out during Christmas.

American Christmas Classics –  FREE SHIPPING until Christmas using Code CHR2015!

Despite the fact that it is not easy to find the perfect gift to send out during Christmas, there is not a total blockade to prevent you from thinking out of the box. It is still possible to come up with a nice sweet collection of American Christmas classics and wrap them into a gift box that will be much appreciated, especially by those folks from the Baby Boomer era. Fortunately, with a little searching, there are several places where you can find such gift collections. One such place is Christmas Classic Ltd. It produces exquisite Christmas music collections that will make perfect Christmas gifts at any time. To boot, American Christmas Classics is available at $29.95 . . . a 50% Discount from the original price of $59.95!

Included in the American Christmas Classics collection are 47 all-time favorite classic Christmas songs featuring music legends Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Andy Williams, Gene Autry and other celebrated singers. But the collection is not only about music.

This cultural treasure includes a lavishly illustrated masterpiece book about the stories behind favorite American Christmas carols and songs featuring period fine art and illustrations from America’s great artists, such as Norman Rockwell, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and Grandma Moses, as well as images of nostalgic Victorian Christmas cards and notable magazines of yesteryear as The Saturday Evening Post, Scribner’s, and LIFE.

This Christmas collection has been described as a sumptuous and ideal gift package that will bring boundless joy this season. For customers nostalgic for their Christmas past, this is the perfect Christmas gift.

Act today for FREE SHIPPING using Code CHR2015

American Christmas Classics

          AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CLASSICS

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In The Bleak Mid-Winter

December 2nd, 2015

Published posthumously in 1904, ten years after the death of Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), the poem In the Bleak Mid-Winter would two years later become a plaintive and haunting Christmas carol. Written by Rossetti sometime before 1872, it was not intended as a carol or hymn, but as a Christmas poem at the behest of Scribner’s Monthly, an American literary magazine.

Rossetti was one of the few hymn writers of her day who garnered a reputation as a poet. She was highly supported by an educated and artistic family. Her father came to England as an Italian patriot and refugee who would become a professor at King’s College in London. Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), was also a poet although he earned greater distinction as a Pre-Raphaelite artist. Possessed of exceptional beauty, Christina often posed as a model for her brother (and other contemporary artists), such as in his unique interpretation of the biblical Annunciation scene with Ecce Ancilla Domini. Sadly she was also known to have suffered her own pain and disappointment, some of which registered as somber verse in the manner of Emily Dickinson, the reclusive American poet.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934), a long-time friend of the celebrated Ralph Vaughan Williams, had a keen interest in Rossetti’s works. Best-known for his classical pieces, notably his orchestral masterpiece The Planets, Holst elevates In the Bleak Mid-Winter with a hymn-like musical setting that was published in the 1906 English Hymnal. Another popular setting for Rossetti’s contemplative poem was produced in 1909 by the English composer, Harold Edwin Darke (1888-1976), while he was a student at the Royal College of Music. His version has been favored by cathedral choirs over the years and it is often featured as part of the Nine Lessons and Carols, the annual Christmas radio broadcast by the King’s College Choir of Cambridge.

Despite England’s long tradition of producing and publishing exceptional carols, In the Bleak Midwinter was voted the greatest Christmas carol of all time in a 2008 poll of English choral experts and choirmasters. This is not at all surprising if your tastes prefer superb Christmas choral singing. Listen closely to the plaintive tune and imagine the gripping scene first depicted in Rossetti’s poem: snow falling on a bitterly cold night, the bleakness of winter, the meager environment attended by a loving and attentive mother in the presence of heavenly angels, stable animals, and lastly a lonely poet humbly offering her heart, her most precious of gifts, to the new-born child Jesus.

Ecce Ancilla Domini - Christina Rossetti posed as the Virgin Mary for this ANNUNCIATION painting by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Ecce Ancilla Domini – Christina Rossetti posed as the Virgin Mary for this 1850 Annunciation work by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Christmas Songs and Carols to Brighten the Holidays

November 29th, 2014

Let us make this “a season to be jolly!” Despite our troubles, let us rekindle the fond memories of Christmas past for our parents,  grandparents, and children. Let us touch the sentimental strings of carefree and youthful days that once consumed Baby Boomers and our military veterans.

Let us start with the idea of organizing some of our holiday festivities around the theme of singing carols and holiday songs. It doesn’t get better than hearing joyous Christmas songs while hauling in and trimming the Christmas tree.

Some familiar old-timers reminisce about the joy of Christmas songs and carols.

The late Andy Williams, a popular singer of the 1960s and 1970s, described celebrating the Christmas season in an interview with me several years ago. “It was such a great time,” Andy said, as he and his three older brothers used to go house to house singing carols and drinking eggnog in Wall Lake, Iowa.

“Those were the days when you knocked on a neighbor’s door and opened unlocked doors.” The talented singer who in later years starred at his Moon River Theater in Branson, Missouri, suggested it would be a nice thing to renew the tradition of caroling around the neighborhood, or one’s home town, “because it is such a wonderful thing to do.”

Della Reese, familiar to television viewers for her earthly role in the popular 1994-2003 program “Touched by an Angel,” wrote to me at the same time “I just love the way Christmas carols change the spirit and attitudes of us all.” An accomplished singer and ordained minister, in addition to her acting skills, she described “Silent Night” as a magnificent thought, and her favorite holiday tune as “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” sung by the mellifluous Nat “King” Cole. The irrepressible Della added, “In fact, I don’t really start my Christmas in earnest until I hear Nat sing “The Christmas Song.”

The late country and pop singer, Gene Pitney, enjoyed considerable success on both sides of the Atlantic through the mid-1960s with more than twenty Top 40 singles, including hits “Town Without Pity” and “Only Love Can Break a Heart.” In an e-mail Gene fondly recalled carving the turkey when his large family gathered for the holidays and the singing of Christmas carols. “I prefer religious carols,” he said, “that have not become jaded by commercial overuse. They represent the essential Christmas message.”

Take a cue from Andy, Della, and Gene. Start this holiday season with the idea of organizing your festivities around the theme of singing carols and holiday songs.

Celebrate with friends and family at home beside the fireplace or piano, or while trimming the Christmas tree, with traditional classics as “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” or “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” or singing such nostalgic holiday fare as “White Christmas,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Encourage friends to join in the singing of “Silent Night” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in front of your neighbors’ city stoop or country home. Better yet, why not sing for our senior citizens at nursing home or an assisted care facilities, or at a food kitchen for the poor and homeless, or a military hospital for our aged veterans or wounded warriors? Rest assured your caroling there will be met with open hearts and ready smiles.

Or you might volunteer to take part in the local performance of Handel’s “Messiah” for other worthy causes, or support a local church by attending its vesper service where awe-inspiring Christmas motets and concertos may reverberate, and where the reverential carol-hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” soars to celestial heights on the wings of angels. This is truly music for the soul.

Though the custom of singing Christmas songs and carols in front of neighborhood homes may seem quaint and outdated, let us redouble our efforts, especially this year, to engage young and old alike in reviving a wonderful Christmas tradition that is never out of fashion.

Ron Clancy is a Christmas songs and carols historian, and the author of illustrated Christmas music gift collections at www.christmasclassics.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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