Six Months Out of Sync
Sam Venable
Department of Irony
“Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, too. Come on it’s lovely —”
Oops. Sorry. Didn’t realize anyone was listening. I’m in such a holiday mood, I can burst into full throat without thinking.
As you can tell by my choice of song, it’s not Independence Day that I’m celebrating. Nothing against the Fourth of July, you understand; I stay red, white, and blue throughout early July. For good reason. When you’re blessed with friends who host barbecue bashes every July Fourth, and that’s also your wife’s birthday, the middle of summer is a non-stop, eat-a-thon, drink-a-thon throwdown. Let the good times roll and pass me another chicken leg.
Yet there happens to be an antidote for such festive excess. A seasonal ace in the hole, you might call it.
I discovered this secret a few winters ago, when holiday TV specials were stacking up faster than sugarplums. I simply asked my wife to record “Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir” when she watched it on PBS, but not tell me anything about it.
I made a point of not looking at it throughout the Christmas season. Nor at New Year’s, Valentine’s, Easter, and other special holidays, either. Instead, I told Mary Ann I was going to keep this show on ice until the middle of summer, then crack it open and judge its effect.
Yeah, I’m weird like that.
On the darkest days of mid-winter, I’m bad to gaze at beach photos, if for no other reason than to remind myself that thawing will, in fact, occur. Conversely, a dose of December in the thick of summer can be an equally bizarre ride. In the parlance of old hippies, this might be considered tripping without the drugs.
And an interesting trip this one was!
While fireflies blinked and fireworks exploded outside the den window, I settled in for an hour of white lights, trees decorated to the nines, fake snow, garlands of holly, strings of cranberries, and a shingle-blasting choir of women in blue, sequined evening dresses, and men in tuxedoes. Sprawled on the sofa in my shorts, T-shirt, and sandals, I felt downright naked. Perhaps straitlaced Mormons would agree — and also harrumph at the contents of the glass in my hand.
The rich baritone of actor and vocalist Brian Stokes Mitchell boomed throughout the performance. You put a gift like that in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir — to the accompaniment of strings, brass, woodwinds and hand bells, no less — and the result is a blend of musical talent audible halfway to Mars.
On a more muted portion of the broadcast, actor Edward Herrmann was at the top of his game with a reading of the Christmas story from Saint Luke. Ditto his poignant rendition of “Longfellow’s Christmas” that ended with a stirring rendition of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” by the choir. Real goose-bump stuff, that. It was such an enjoyable, time-warp experience, I hopped into bed thinking Santa Claus might come during the night.
Nope. All that greeted me the next morning was a shaggy lawn that begged to be mowed.
Perhaps one of these July Fourths, I’ll videotape barbecues, Mary Ann’s birthday party, and fireworks and save ’em until the following December.
Like I said earlier, I’m weird like that.
Sam Venable is an author, comedic entertainer, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. His latest book is “The Joke’s on YOU! (All I Did Was Clean Out My Files).”
He may be reached at sam.venable@outlook.com.