tree tops glisten and children listen to hear sleighbells in the snow

As I'm...oh, I don't know, like too many days behind my Christmas song posting...I figured I'd start back up again with one I guarantee you'll know and love.
Now enter the beautiful crooning of Bing Crosby singing: "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas...."
What a beautiful and glorious holiday song. It is the most covered/recorded Holiday song.
And as Christmas looms closer and closer, we all wish to be "home." This song isn't about anything but simply the longing for traditions, familiarity, a childhood fantasy of the Christmases we were used to before life took us away to a grown-up world.

What most people don't know is the original lyrics to White Christmas included a verse that preceded the main choruses. Irving Berlin, the composer and creator of this Christmas Classic, was away from his family in New York at this time, and simply wishing to be with them instead of Hollywood where he was working on a project. He sat down to his piano, and in the only key he knew how to play in (F# for those musically inclined,) and plucked out the following tune:
"The sun is shining, the grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day
in Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the twenty-fourth,—
And I am longing to be up North."

Since my recent move to Southern California (I'm just a short drive from Beverly Hills), this verse makes all the difference to me this year. What a testament. Though we've had cooler temperatures than the infamous "July Fry," it still mostly feels like a warm fall day.

The song then goes into the famous chorus.
"I'm dreaming of a white christmas. Just like the ones I used to know. Where the tree tops glisten, and children listen to hear sleighbells in the snow. I'm dreaming of a White Christmas with every Christmas card I write. May your days be merry and bright...and may all your Christmases be white."

If you don't mind, I'm going to indulge myself in a tad bit of storytelling here.

When I was a young girl, I grew up in a small town in Minnesota. I could hardly recall a Christmas without snow. Every year during the Christmas season, my town would host a weekend Christmas celebration. And on that Saturday, they would open up the local community center as a "kids shopping" day. Tables were filled with knick-nacks and tokens as kids would buy their gifts for their family members. And on that day the town also hired a local horesman to hook up a wagon filled with hay behind a couple of his horses. And for that day, all day long, he would drive that wagon around town. Children would race and hop on the back for a ride, and he would drop them off at the community center for their shopping. The ground would be white with mounds of snow, the children would be all bundled up in their winter coats, snowpants, boots, hats, mittens and scarves, and the sleighbells would jingle from the horses necks and around the wagon.

Looking back I realize how blessed I am to have had those memories. Those beautiful white Christmas memories. Where the treetops really did glisten and glitter from the snow's reflection in the sun or the streetlamps. And where children listened to the sleighbells jingle from the horses as it drove by, signaling their time to run out and hop on the wagon.

I may not write Christmas cards, but currently I'm writing this. And I truly do wish that your Christmases be merry and bright...and that your Christmases be white. Because there's just nothing like a White Christmas.