Where Did It All Go-HO HO

I'm not feeling very Christmasy this Christmas season.

If you don't know me, or have never been through Christmas with me, you know this is not normal. Weather notwithstanding, I am the Christmas Queen. Even through and beyond the split family deal, Christmas remained this magical period where time stopped and our attention turned toward a different way. Not just the tray after tray of cookies, not just the tree, but something else.

This year, that sparkle just isn't there.

Maybe it's the last hurrah of the childhood wonder of Christmas that I always managed to carry with me. Maybe it's the onerous and rather continuous repairs to the car which drained my holiday cheer account. Maybe it's my preoccupation with work and things beyond the job, like, how I accomplish all the stuff I want to do. Maybe it's the sadness in folks that surround me. Whatever it is, it doesn't feel like Christmas.

But this evening, as I was baking, I was listening to the Sugar Hill collection, and this beautiful simple little tune came on. It's called

Little Martha
(if you have trouble, get the whole thing free from Rhapsody.com.)

and it's from Jerry Douglas. I have this merry little band of men and women who, when I hear them play or sing, have a supernatural ability to lift my spirits so that I can just take a breath and get through whatever it is I'm doing. Jerry Douglas is in that batch of people who put me at ease and set me right. And, he's from Northeast Ohio, which has professionally got me all confused, so he's like this little glimmer of hope, that things can and do work out the way they're supposed to. Thank you, Jerry Douglas, for having paid your dues and still being such a steady in this unsteady world, and for your contributions to bluegrass, from before Boone Creek right on up through today, December 19, 2006 (ugh).

So as I look at my messy dining room table covered in wrapping paper shards and recipe books, I share this tune with readers. Appropriately enough, it's from his album, Lookout for Hope.

Good advice this season.