Amid the Cold of Winter
Sam Venable
Department of Irony
Somewhere in the dark recesses of a file cabinet at my home office—note to self: I will organize that file cabinet some day; second note to self: yeah, right—is a photograph I shot in December 2007. I keep meaning to turn it into our family’s Christmas card but haven’t, for two reasons.
First, my computer-geek wife is much more disciplined than I. She actually gets Christmas card tasks accomplished.
Second, Mary Ann consistently arranges a boffo family portrait, like the one from last summer’s beach vacation. One of our friends photographed us in the setting sun: casually yet symmetrically standing against a sand dune, sea oats waving in the background, glimmering ocean in the distance. It’s one of those rare pictures in which all the smiling adults have their eyes open and no grandkids are picking their noses.
Still, hope springs eternal. One of these years, I’ll get around to turning that old December photograph into a card. Absolutely. Positively. Well, maybe …
The impromptu photo was snapped one cold morning as I draped garlands of fake greenery across the rustic fence in front of our house. One end of this emerald faux fir dangled from a fence post, to which I was attaching a red bow. Down on the ground, something brilliant caught my eye.
It was a tiny rose bud, coming to life in the dead of winter. Yes, just like the one in my all-time favorite Christmas hymn: “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” It plays constantly at our house during the Christmas season. It’s selection No. 5 on a compact disc of sacred music performed by the Cambridge Singers and Orchestra, directed by John Rutter. It was recorded in 1997 in the Lady Chapel of England’s famed Ely Cathedral. Just in case you doubted my knowledge.
My taste in holiday music runs a broad gamut, secular to religious: from “Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas” to “O, Holy Night” and everything in between. But “Lo, How a Rose” trumps them all. As Mary Ann frequently laments, “You know there are other selections on that CD besides No. 5, don’t you?”
(Really? Do tell! Maybe I’ll get around to playing them about the time I do that Christmas card.)
This is a hymn of German origin, circa 16th century. No one knows the original author, although the English translation was composed by Theodore Baker (1851-1934) in 1894.
One of the most moving performances of it I ever saw was broadcast years ago by WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tenn. Videographer Doug Mills shot it for a news program. The choir from Kentucky’s Cumberland College was at the Museum of Appalachia that day, singing from the front porch of an old log cabin. At the start of “Lo, How a Rose,” a gentle snow began falling. I can still see the scene in my mind, still hear those words wafting through the chilled air:
Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind.
With Mary we behold it, the Virgin Mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Saviour,
When half-spent was the night.
If you don’t get goose bumps from a glorious hymn like that, there just ain’t no hope. You probably won’t get a visit from Santa, either.
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 .