Favorite Holiday Song

My most favorite holiday song, the one I can listen to over and over again all year long, is The Little Drummer Boy.

Now that's a real Christmas present - to offer something personal and from the heart, something absolutely no one else can give and something that isn't bought in a store, bankrupting the giver.

If Christmas were filled with these types of gifts - a song (voice or instrumental or both), a dance, a story, a joke, an anecdote, or something of that sort - how merry the season would truly be.

Those are the gifts I prefer to give on holy days.

Tangible gifts like computers, music CDs, DVDs, shoes, socks, books - those are for birthdays, anniversaries, and other personal gift giving occasions, but the holy days - we give the fruits of the gifts the gods gave us. If we've been given a beautiful voice, we give back songs, if we've been given the gift of grace, we give dance, if we've been given the gift of culinary skills, we give food, if we've been given the gift of drama, we give a performance. We all have something we've been given by the gods, that we've nurtured and developed, and it is only right that on the holy days, we share what we've done with those gifts with those about us, and display how well we've appreciated the gift to the gods who gave them to us.

Any other gift is a poor mimicry of that.

And so I love The Little Drummer Boy.

It brings tears to my eyes and joy to my heart every single time I hear it.