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Christmas Faves
I realized looking at the calendar today, Christmas is just around the corner. Is it too early to start thinking Christmas? I’m starting to hear Christmas tunes on the radio, and some homes have their Christmas lights up already here in Canada. Looking forward to the MLT Advent Calendar. MLT brought Christmas back to me.
Here is one of my favourite MLT Christmas videos, and for me I enjoy it all year round.
What are some of your favourite MLT Christmas songs/videos?
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46 Replies
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Hi Jung, which one do you think? 🙂
Right! My absolute favourite: „Leise rieselt der Schnee“. A soulful song with which I associate many, very beautiful childhood memories: The scent of the fir tree. The Christmas plate with home-baked biscuits and sweets. Colourful, glittering Christmas tree decorations. Glowing candles on the Advent wreath. The record player playing my favourite Christmas songs. Roast goose on Christmas Eve and of course the beautiful presents under the Christmas tree. And outside, rieselte leise der Schnee, transforming the landscape into a white winter fairy tale.
It is one of the best-known Christmas carols in the German language. It was written by the Protestant pastor Eduard Ebel (1839-1905) in Graudenz in 1895 and published under the title „Weihnachtsgruß“ in his volume „Gesammelte Gedichte“. The composition of the melody is also often attributed to Ebel, but this information is uncertain and apparently unproven, especially since Ebel’s own publication only contains the text. According to other sources, the melody is a folk tune that Ebel himself possibly adopted for his song.
(Source: wikipedia)PS: I would like to see Mona and Lisa do it completely in German. For me, “Leise rieselt der Schnee” conveys a different feeling than “Snow falls softly at night“. I also love “Walking in the Air”. Especially the video. (and many, many others…)
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Hi Jurgen. What a beautiful description of Christmas spirit in your opening paragraph there! I love all the MLT Christmas videos/songs they have done. Hard to choose one. Thanks for the insight into the song. Leise rieselt der Schnee is really MLTs first Christmas video they posted, and here is the first version they did many years ago that his it’s own wonderful charm.
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Juergen,
thanks for the insights.
Christmas sounds special in the German-speaking world.
Frohe Weihnachten.
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Thanks Tom, I wish you the same. But I hope we’ll hear from each other again before Christmas.
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Juergen,
Here’s hoping the Twins do a Christmas zoom gathering again.
As i write this it’s raining email form the Twins as they catch up with their Q’s from club members.
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I’m making it simple…Luv All MLT Xmas Songs Equally….lol…but they each hold their own specialness, and same here Jung, one local radio has already started their tradition of becoming all Xmas music until just after New Years and I’ve seen Xmas lights on as well while on bus at night around supper time if I’ve been out n about, coming home ????
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Please forgive the digression.
Jung, are you getting back and forth to work OK? Are you using a boat?
Have you taken up residence on an Ark. It looks frightful up there.
I hope all is well.
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Hi Tom. Thanks, things are OK where I am, but just 15 minutes or so by highway east of my township is underwater, and the weatherman is talking about another parade of storms starting tonight, and then again on the weekend which will be a big concern as the ground is already so saturated everywhere. It’s feeling like Venice around here.
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My favorite MLT Christmas song is their cover of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Their arrangement wakes this song from its coma and replaces all the stodginess with exuberance.
And my favorite video would have to be All I Want Christmas to Be. It’s so much fun to see Mona and Lisa enjoying Christmas as kids, reminding us all of the magical quality of the season way back when. And their backstory of the fortuitous snowstorm that sent them running back home to grab their filming gear always makes me smile as I watch them casually stroll through it.
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David, with All I Want Christmas To Be we have a new Christmas song as good as any of the iconic carols. Captures the Christmas spirit of our childhood, so pure and innocent. Amazing song writing.
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My absolute fav from MLT is Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth. The harmonies are out of this world.
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Michael, I actually prefer and love their rendition better than Bowie and Bing’s and up until MLT’s version, I loved and thought B and B ‘s was the best going, the impossible occured, and for the betterment of /for all Humankind …????☮
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If it’s just about the Christmas lights, this is my personal favourite:
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Jacki, Michael, I agree MLT Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth is angelic, and it shows just how absolutely amazing Mona and Lisa’s vocals are, their harmonies are to die for. No one can sing as good as this duo!!! When MLT released this Christmas 2018, I literally listened to this all year through, and I still occasionally listen to it outside of Christmas. Lisa’s lead vocals just sends shivers, Mona’s harmony and the layers of Mona and Lisa backing choir vocals makes you feel like you are in heaven. Moments of absolute beauty!!!
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I liked your Christmas memories Jurgen. They sound magical. It reminded me of going to Grandma’s house at Christmas time. The twenty minute ride seemed like forever, but ended with overflowing plates of cookies. She handed her recipes down to my Mom, and Mom makes those cookies just like Grandma’s, or better. My Mom jokes with us that we need to give her a couple of days notice before a visit. That gives her time to bake cookies.
I love the Christmas album, especially Walking In The Air. It was a great addition to my skiing playlist last year. They are making snow at our local ski area this week, so I am looking forward to skiing with a well balanced MLT soundtrack. I really like their take on Santa Baby. And those purum pum pum pum harmonies are amazing, and Silent Night…yes, every song is full of that MonaLisa spirit that makes the heart grow warm.
I think the Christmas Spirit has awakened at the MLT Club.
JP
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Thank you JP. These childhood memories are something beautiful and they also have something comforting about them when life sometimes doesn’t mean well for you.
Do you also have the tradition of Christmas markets in the U.S. or Canada? In our country, Christmas markets are set up in almost all larger cities. In the middle of the city, on a large open space, small villages of wooden huts and Christmas trees are created. The huts serve as stalls selling Christmas decorations, candles, wooden toys and pottery. Some traders also bake bread in old stone ovens, following even older recipes, and of course there are plenty of food stalls offering sweets, mulled wine or mead and everywhere the scent of roasted almonds and glazed baked apples is in the air. Some Christmas markets also have a small ice rink where you can skate or a stage where live bands play Christmas music. This is also the transition to the next Christmas video: Wonderful Christmas Time. When I heard the song for the first time many years ago, it took me a long time to like the original song by Paul McCartney. In the meantime I like the song very much. Unconventional but still original. Mona & Lisa’s rendition is smoother and softer than the original song. In combination with the music video, I have taken the song to my heart.
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Paul McCarney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time” is an infectious tune that over the decades whenever I hear it around Christmas time always plays in my head long afterwards. Must be Paul’s melody magic! I’ve heard though a lot of people don’t care for it, perhaps because Paul’s version is somewhat electro-pop of the 70s/80s style that don’t fit in well with some who prefer the traditional carol type of Christmas songs. I find MLTs version with their wonderful harmonies and the Ukelele and acoustic guitar transformed it, and I like it even more. The video filmed along quiet walk ways feel very peaceful. There was a radio program a couple years ago I recall where they played MLTs “Wonderful Christmas Time” and the radio host who never cared for Paul’s version loved MLTs.
Jurgen, we have Christmas markets in Canada too. In fact where I use to work they had one nearby that you had to pay an admission to get into. It had all the wonderful Christmas stores, foods, decorations and atmosphere of a traditional Christmas.
A favourite of mine is the lake near where I live, they light up all the trees around the lake with Christmas lights with music going on, food trucks selling hot chocolate, mini donuts and many other wonderful Chrismassy treats, and side walk vendors selling roasted chestnuts and popcorn. And when it snows, like it has in recent years, it really feels like a “Winter Wonderland”, another fave of mine from the MLT Christmas Album. I like MLTs version of this song the best of all.
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A lake with illuminated trees? I imagine that very beautiful, Jung. Do you maybe have one or two pictures you could show here? I also like the song Winter Wonderland very much. I think the very first time I heard the song was in Doris Day’s version. That must have been quite a while ago 🙂
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Nice choice, Jung ????
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Thanks JP! ???? I hope you get to sail on the slopes soon with “Walking In The Air” playing, and the white powder spraying behind you!
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Hi Jurgen. Yes thanks for asking. I don’t think pictures alone can do the Christmas lights around the lake justice, so here is a small video as well from 2018 to spark the Christmas spirit in advance of the Advent Calendar!!! ????????????❤
Unfortunately no snow that Christmas.
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Hi Jung, thanks for the photo and the video. That looks very nice! And I can imagine, if it has then still snowed and maybe even the lake is still frozen, then the whole thing gets a very special Christmas charm.
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These last couple of years certainly has been uncertain and gloomy. In the pacific NW Canada last summer we had a historic heat dome of weeks in the high 30s and 40Cs that resulted in a lot of casualties across the province, then later in the summer massive wild fires like never before that burned down entire towns, and then in November a chain of “atmospheric rivers” causing landslides, floods, that washed away homes and lives. And then there is the uncertainty of covid as it takes another turn.
A few nights ago I stood out in front of my place in the middle of a deluge, and I could see one house with it’s Christmas lights on. It looked like defiance against all the darkness and gloom, a little beacon of beauty and hope rising up to state, “universe, you can’t blow out my flame!”. It was kind of inspiring to see, and I felt better. Let your inner essence shine despite what happens around you.
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