Let your heart be light

I don’t suppose there’s been a war in the past two thousand or so years in which all sides didn’t assure themselves that it would be over by Christmas. (And victoriously. For all sides.)

But since I’ve been thinking specifically about the events in the Ardennes of 70 years ago, I’m going to give you a couple of Christmas songs that evoke the hopes and desires of at least the Americans—those at the front and those at home. Hearing them always makes me think of those dark, bleak and fearful days.

The first dates from a year before the Battle of the Bulge, but speaks directly to the deepest yearning for home and familiar things of a citizen soldier serving on foreign soil in alien conditions. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” paints an idealized picture of what the holidays represent. It sounds a little kitschy these days, but it must have cut deep into the hearts of everyone who’d been displaced by the war.

Apparently the song’s writer couldn’t sell it to music publishers until he sang it to Bing Crosby on the golf course. Crosby liked it, and back in those days, if Crosby wanted to make a record, he did. It was a substantial hit for him in both 1943 and 1944.

Josh Groban has got a lot of mileage out of his update—voted greatest holiday recording of all time in a recent poll by readers of the San José Mercury-News. He beat out Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song”, which I’d have thought unstoppable. It’s nice, of course, although I think it just a tad manipulative weaving in messages from serving soldiers and their families. (But, in fairness, I think a little Groban goes a long way, so when I hear him I need to guard against insulin shock.)

But since I’m thinking WWII, I’ll give you Crosby’s original.

The second song I’ll share featured in the film Meet Me in Saint Louis, which I classify as one of the best Christmas movies ever, even though it’s not strictly a Christmas movie. MMiSL was released in November 1944, and I’m thinking that “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” must have resonated with everyone who really had thought that, after the Normandy landings and the drive across France, the war surely would have been over by Christmas.

Instead, there was the confusion and fear engendered by the news of the totally surprising German offensive and the inability of Allied commanders to mount a solid defense, much less a counterattack as long as the weather prevented air operations.

The family in MMiSL are faced with a sudden and massive disruption, which is deeply upsetting to them all, but especially to the youngest (played by Margaret O’Brien). “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” gives us Judy Garland trying to find a way to persuade her sister and herself that, if this Christmas is less than stellar, they can rely on their memories of the wonderful ones of the past and their hopes of more for the future to get them through it.

Which, of course, is what Americans here and abroad were having to do.

There were some bumps along the road to getting “Have Yourself” on the screen—the initial lyrics were exceedingly dark, and had to be rewritten. But what emerged on the screen was wistful and tender; I think it’s one of the best modern Christmas songs. (Beats the daylights out of “White Christmas”, war or no war.)

I’ve never been a fan of Garland’s voice, so I’m giving you Frank Sinatra. There's no one better than Sinatra for phrasing.

It was 70 years ago today that the thick clouds broke, and the Allies were able to fill the skies over the Ardennes with bombers as well as with cargo planes to resupply the Americans holding out against the massive German attack. I’d like to think that these two songs were running through the heads of the men in Europe and their families back home.

And that they are as warm and comforting for you as they are to me.