Frosted window panes, candles gleaming inside, Painted candy canes on the tree…

It's that time of year when the world falls in love, Ev'ry song you hear seems to say "Merry Christmas…"

Ahhh, one of my favorite Christmas songs.   And it carries with it a delightful reminder that one of the fun signs of the season are all the lovely Christmas lights coupled with Christmas carols and Christmas praise and worship songs. So far this year, my grandchildren and I have enjoyed a myriad of delightful displays as we've driven back and forth on errands. In addition, my senior mom, some of the grandkids and I have enjoyed a delightful outdoor display put on by the city they live in. This particular one is set up for you to park and walk around in the middle of the lights. I wasn't sure how well my senior mom would do since it was a particularly cold night. I should have remembered this is the same mom who tries to walk every single day no matter how cold it is! She did great and enjoyed it very much! Of course, the grandchildren found it the most magical, but we grownups loved the twinkling lights as well. My favorite part was the big tree that was set up to twinkle to the Christmas carols that were playing. Deee-light-ful!

Now that we are back home, we have a few more options like that available to us here. These won't be quite as much fun for the grandkids, but the aging parents will appreciate them more. You tour the display in your car with the heater running and the windows up. Granted, you might not get to hear their sweet Christmas carols, but the car radio or CD player should work just fine

I really appreciate that many of them are open through the first of the year. That way out-of-town guests who may visit after Christmas can join in the fun with us. I'm already looking forward to taking my senior mom and a good friend out to look at one of the displays available. It will remind her and me of one of our favorite Christmas memories – driving around to look at the Christmas light displays eons ago when I was just a little girl. My dad found the coolest area. Several neighborhoods got together and did block displays. One block would have all candy canes. Another block would have ice skaters. Nativity scenes were the priority on yet another block, and so on. We'd drive slowly by and enjoy the lights thoroughly. Then we'd head home for hot chocolate and Bing Crosby.

For those of you whose aging parents can't get out to see the Christmas lights, I hope you'll enjoy these videos I found. These light displays are incredible and I especially love that two of them are synchronized to Christmas praise and worship.  Merry Christmas!

Would you like to hear some amazing singing? I received the link to this in my email yesterday. It is beautiful! I wanted to share it with you so that you might take a few minutes to just let the music and the words soak into your heart and encourage you mightily.

Il Divo

I have to admit, I had never heard of the performers before. They are an operatic group called Il Divo. After hearing and seeing this delightful video, I decided to check them out a bit further.

According to the editorial review, they are four of the greatest operatic voices in the world who have been bringing the sound of opera to the world of popular music since their debut in 2002. It would appear they sing in English, Spanish, and Italian.

I am not an American Idol watcher. There are too many other shows I prefer, like all the Law & Orders, along with all the CSIs, NCIS, Numbers, etc. I am, however, familiar with some of the people from Idol, including Simon Cowell. I was interested to discover from Wikipedia that ll Divo was created by Simon Cowell. Guess I’ll be able to think about him a bit more positively in the future

All in all, it was quite interesting to learn about them. They offer an intriguing sound to a wonderful old hymn and I hope you enjoyed the music and the info, as did I. If you are interested in hearing more of their music, you might be interested to know that they have a Christmas CD. It had an interesting mix of Christmas hymns, Christmas popular songs, Christmas opera, and even a lovely rendition of ‘Over the Rainbow.” Definitely an eclectic combination that you’re not likely to already have. I listened to the samples at Amazon and thought it would make a lovely addition to a Christmas CD collection. I’ve added it to my calendar to remember to put it on my list of Christmas CDs to give to my children and grandchildren. (Can you believe it, I really do plan that far ahead sometimes!)