Sunday, December 14, 2008

This is a Christmas scene up on the hill in Lindon; the house is like a castle; he is a customer of Dan's. I don't know if any of you saw the Tabernacle Choir this morning; they had a Christmas program. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen them do. There was singing and dancing and beautiful decorations with huge bells! A guy told a story (he is a movie star, can't remember his name) about how the song "I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day" came to be written. It was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was about how he and his family loved Christmastime and they would go for a ride in the sleigh on Christmas and see the sparkling snow and hear the bells. The kids would giggle and have such fun. But, one night their house caught on fire and his wife died in the fire and he was seriously burned trying to rescue her. So, their Christmases were never the same. Then his son went to war (Civil War) and was missing and sick for a long time. But, he finally came to realize that they still needed to celebrate Christmas like old times and he felt so good about it. He sat down and wrote the song; when we were at church today, I looked up the song and read it. It brought tears to my eyes reading it and now whenever I sing or hear that song, I will think about how it came to be written.

3 comments:

Julie said...

That is a cool story. I did not see the chior sing. We just got back from our stake Christmas chior concert and Mic Parker and Haley sang in it, then all the wards sang all together. It was cool. I love singing at Christmas time.

karen louise said...

Wow-that is an amazing story! I've never heard that before. I love seeing the lights outside--I remember how we used to go on drives all the time when we were little to look at them--I should go see this one!!

Joni said...

Awesome story! It's always nice to know where those songs come from. I'm going to take the kids to see those lights! We love to drive around and look at lights!