My Christmas Rack

Songs They Sing for The Son 

“Sing a song of gladness and cheer!/for the time of Christmas is here!” sings Jose Mari Chan, in his all-time favorite anthology “Christmas in Our Hearts” (1990). Very well, these words spell my mood, inspired by listening to these heart warmers in my Christmas collection. 

Through the years of Christmas celebrations, holidays and December vacations, I acquired them. Every year, I have continually appreciated what they offer to the soul. They share grace and joy to whoever can listen to them. How these albums got into my rack or how I got these masterpieces I have yet to recall.

But regardless of their history and motivations, in all their original selections and covers of traditional songs—they offer one and the same message— ceremoniously and soulfully they pay tribute to Baby Jesus, the Lord of All.

Bonding with the Boy

98 Degrees, "This Christmas," MCA Universal, 1998

Boy band, boy bond—whatever term you use, Nick Lachey and his friends give us all the reasons to celebrate Christmas as they render cool covers to most traditional Christmas carols like “Silent Night,” “O Holy Night,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and “Little Drummer Boy.” Here, they hardly resemble NKOTB, evading the boy band image by hitting notes that spell sweet things like “mistletoe” and “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” The solos in some songs display vocalization and rhythmic intonations that remind us of more solemn choirs in churches. Surely, such style does not fail to send shivers from the spine to the soul.

Little Redeemer Boy

Glenn Medeiros, "The Glenn Medeiros Christmas Album: Recorded in Hawaii," Amherst Records, 1993

This 90s Leif Garrett is more than a heartthrob when he croons way, way beyond his pretty-boy image. When he reaches high notes, he is surely pop. He sounds like a lad who has seen the Baby Jesus so he doesn’t need to act silly—he just sings holy. His “Feliz Navidad” and “Ave Maria” are choice cuts, baring innocence and jolliness in varying degrees. He does away with his shrill voice when he allows the instruments to do it for him—he focuses on hitting the emotional rises of the lyrics to render a slightly pop finish. In all, Hawaii-born Medeiros’ almost girlish voice makes recalling the Nativity a simply light moment—just like the playful child Who shall redeem us from our lack, or utter loss of innocence.

Persons are Gifts are Instruments

Ken Navarro, "Christmas Cheer," Galaxy Records, 1996

This virtuoso acoustic guitarist offers an alternative way to remember our salvation. It sets your Christmas mood through an instrumental overload—with some traditional songs like “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Silent Night” as choice pieces. Listening to Navarro’s one-of-a-kind strummings may tell us that salvation—by the Holy Child—need not be brought about by pain and suffering [like rock or harsh or hard sentiment]. Rather Christmas is all about cheer. With Navarro’s work, Christmas has never been so jazz, light and easy. For sure, you would want to play this bunch before you go to that Christmas party in which you’d render a surprise lousy fox trot number for all of them to see!

Cowboy Christmas

Randy Travis, "An Old Time Christmas," Warner, 1989

You would easily know how an ordinary Christmas carol sounds—but add to it some cowboy or any colloquial twang, then you get Randy Travis. But you do—not just for nothing. Here is one cowboy—whose stereotyped licentious lifestyle may tell you otherwise, whose pieces might ring a bell because they match with those of other CMT favorites—Travis Tritt, Allison Krauss or Garth Brooks. With this album, Travis proves that something more can be done beyond saddles and stall. He lets loose his soul when he chants both holy and hallowed. While his “Winter Wonderland” may perfectly fit the Marlboro ad in Time’s December issue, his reconstructed “Oh What A Silent Night” allows the guitar to sway the thoughts of the soul lulled to slumber. This cowboy’s treatment of traditional songs affords us easy cool and listening that can make us even remark oddly, as “Cowboys have Christmas too!"

Rebels We’ve Heard On High

Various Artists, "Christmas on the Rocks," Viva Records, 1994

This album hit the stands during the grunge and rock era—a time when anxiety and discord were the heyday. It gathered mostly artists and rockers who were perhaps angry at how Christmas was usually celebrated. Featuring covers of songs composed by National Artist Levi Celerio and other traditional Filipino compositions, it portrays and documents the consciousness of a more realistic Christmas, at least as defined by Filipino experience. For one, Sandugo’s “Pasko ng Mahirap, Pasko ng Mayaman” sings away a social realist stance—perhaps a self-talk on the part of the oppressed class who claims it’s also Christmas in their part of the world, despite their poverty and forlorn state [or even state of mind]. 

While DJ Alvaro’s “Gabing Tahimik” is a more soulful rendition of ”Silent Night,” which hit playlists and charts in 1990s, Ang Grupong Pendong’s “Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit” completes this collection to compose a sort of a Lino Brocka’s counterpart opus—it collectively makes a statement on the dismal social realities brought on to Filipinos at Christmas. You may not necessarily be one of those donning a cheap Che Guevarra T-shirt to appreciate its message; but one’s own salvation, according to the album, is simply working for social justice—and all it entails.

True, my collection is not the one you may have to die for—it is neither hard-to-find, for these artists are not as popular as, say, Ray Conniff and his singers, Chipmunks, Destiny’s Child, Frank Sinatra or even Nat King Cole. Yet, in this season of cheer and giving, their music all the same strikes chords in my heart and mind; when I play them,  I do not fail to realize all of mankind intensely desires to share the innocence, the joy, and the promised redemption by the Holy Child.

Good news from heaven the angels bring,

glad tidings to the earth they sing:

to us this day a child is given,

to crown us with the joy of heaven.

                                                      ~Martin Luther

My Christmas Rack

Songs They Sing for The Son 

“Sing a song of gladness and cheer!/for the time of Christmas is here!” sings Jose Mari Chan, in his all-time favorite anthology “Christmas in Our Hearts” (1990). Very well, these words spell my mood, inspired by listening to these heart warmers in my Christmas collection. 

Through the years of Christmas celebrations, holidays and December vacations, I acquired them. Every year, I have continually appreciated what they offer to the soul. They share grace and joy to whoever can listen to them. How these albums got into my rack or how I got these masterpieces I have yet to recall.

But regardless of their history and motivations, in all their original selections and covers of traditional songs—they offer one and the same message— ceremoniously and soulfully they pay tribute to Baby Jesus, the Lord of All.

Bonding with the Boy

98 Degrees, "This Christmas," MCA Universal, 1998

Boy band, boy bond—whatever term you use, Nick Lachey and his friends give us all the reasons to celebrate Christmas as they render cool covers to most traditional Christmas carols like “Silent Night,” “O Holy Night,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” and “Little Drummer Boy.” Here, they hardly resemble NKOTB, evading the boy band image by hitting notes that spell sweet things like “mistletoe” and “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” The solos in some songs display vocalization and rhythmic intonations that remind us of more solemn choirs in churches. Surely, such style does not fail to send shivers from the spine to the soul.

Little Redeemer Boy

Glenn Medeiros, "The Glenn Medeiros Christmas Album: Recorded in Hawaii," Amherst Records, 1993

This 90s Leif Garrett is more than a heartthrob when he croons way, way beyond his pretty-boy image. When he reaches high notes, he is surely pop. He sounds like a lad who has seen the Baby Jesus so he doesn’t need to act silly—he just sings holy. His “Feliz Navidad” and “Ave Maria” are choice cuts, baring innocence and jolliness in varying degrees. He does away with his shrill voice when he allows the instruments to do it for him—he focuses on hitting the emotional rises of the lyrics to render a slightly pop finish. In all, Hawaii-born Medeiros’ almost girlish voice makes recalling the Nativity a simply light moment—just like the playful child Who shall redeem us from our lack, or utter loss of innocence.

Persons are Gifts are Instruments

Ken Navarro, "Christmas Cheer," Galaxy Records, 1996

This virtuoso acoustic guitar player offers an alternative way to remember our salvation. It sets your Christmas mood through an instrumental overload—with some traditional songs like “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Silent Night” as choice pieces. Listening to Navarro’s one-of-a-kind string renditions may tell us that salvation—by the Holy Child—need not be brought about by pain and suffering [like rock or harsh or hard sentiment]. Rather Christmas is all about cheer, strummed away by the heart. With Navarro’s work, Christmas has never been so jazz, light and easy. For sure, you would want to play this bunch before you go to that Christmas party in which you’d render a surprise lousy fox trot number for all of them to see!

Cowboy Christmas

Randy Travis, "An Old Time Christmas," Warner, 1993

You would easily know how an ordinary Christmas carol sounds—but add to it some cowboy or any colloquial twang, then you get Randy Travis. But you do—not just for nothing. Here is one cowboy—whose stereotyped licentious lifestyle may tell you otherwise, whose pieces might ring a bell because they match with those of other CMT favorites—Travis Tritt, Allison Krauss or Garth Brooks. With this album, Travis proves that something more can be done beyond saddles and stall. He lets loose his soul when he chants both holy and hallowed. While his “Winter Wonderland” may perfectly fit the Marlboro ad in Time’s December issue, his reconstructed “Oh What A Silent Night” allows the guitar to sway the thoughts of the soul lulled to slumber. This cowboy’s treatment of traditional songs affords us easy cool and listening that can make us even remark oddly, as “Cowboys have Christmas too!"

Rebels We’ve Heard On High

Various Artists, "Christmas on the Rocks," Viva Records, 1994

This album hit the stands during the grunge and rock era—a time when anxiety and discord were the heyday. It gathered mostly artists and rockers who were perhaps angry at how Christmas was usually celebrated. Featuring covers of songs composed by National Artist Levi Celerio and other traditional Filipino compositions, it portrays and documents the consciousness of a more realistic Christmas, at least as defined by Filipino experience. For one, Sandugo’s “Pasko ng Mahirap, Pasko ng Mayaman” sings away a social realist stance—perhaps a self-talk on the part of the oppressed class who claims it’s also Christmas in their part of the world, despite their poverty and forlorn state [or even state of mind]. 

While DJ Alvaro’s “Gabing Tahimik” is a more soulful rendition of ”Silent Night,” which hit playlists and charts in 1990s, Ang Grupong Pendong’s “Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit” completes this collection to compose a sort of a Lino Brocka’s counterpart opus—it collectively makes a statement on the dismal social realities brought on to Filipinos at Christmas. You may not necessarily be one of those donning a cheap Che Guevarra T-shirt to appreciate its message; but one’s own salvation, according to the album, is simply working for social justice—and all it entails.

True, my collection is not the one you may have to die for—it is neither hard-to-find, for these artists are not as popular as, say, Ray Conniff and his singers, Chipmunks, Destiny’s Child, Frank Sinatra or even Nat King Cole. Yet, in this season of cheer and giving, their music all the same strikes chords in my heart and mind; when I play them,  I do not fail to realize all of mankind intensely desires to share the innocence, the joy, and the promised redemption by the Holy Child.

Good news from heaven the angels bring,

glad tidings to the earth they sing:

to us this day a child is given,

to crown us with the joy of heaven.

                                                      ~Martin Luther

The Fashion of Christ

Just when most sources of biblical inspiration seem to dissipate your exhausted soul—with audio-visual materials repeating themselves on television or the papers, one entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica can shed much light, or brand new outlook on your Christian life, as perhaps when you first read Og Mandino’s "The Christ Commission."

Published in the Britannica’s 7th edition under “Jesus” in the years between 1830 and 1842, and penned by Rev. David Welsh, professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Edinburgh, the attribute to the Savior is a simply fitting description for the doubtful or [even] the individual who has yet to discern his faith.

Reading this on with an open mind can render the much-needed source for introspection and insight.

“The character of Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, presents to us the only example, anywhere to be found, of the perfection of humanity; and the contemplation of it has ever been considered by his followers as one of the most edifying and delightful exercises of piety.”

What is Christ’s way? What is Christ’s way? To be a Christian demands greatly and much from anyone. It asks him to scrape off his very self—usually brimming with ill wills and selfish motivations. To be Christ-like is to deny the self which, usually, hardly sees the issues and needs of others. To follow Christ and his example is to encounter much difficulty because the situation is uncalled for by the self which usually abhors suffering and pain.

But a Christian life is the most enlightening because only after going through all these pains that one realizes—yes, always, later—that one glorious, redeeming moment is worth all the hurts it entails.

“A constant regard to the will of God, and a delight in doing it, form the distinguishing features of his character.”
In the ways that people live, Jesus Christ and all his lofty examples clearly stand in their way. Ironically, the One who gave life to mankind seems to be the antagonist in any man’s life who has considered himself the protagonist, the very essence of his existence.

But the ways of Jesus Christ make us revert to God’s entire purpose for all our lives. If we have been running away for so long finding our life purpose, Jesus presents to us the “alternative”—which was, in fact, human life’s original purpose. It is just so tragic that regarding God’s will in our lives entails much sacrifices and tradeoffs. God’s ways indeed are certainly not our ways.

“With this was connected the absence of all sordid, or selfish, or ambitious aims, and an enlarged and enlightened philanthropy.”

Denying oneself and seeking to first understand, rather than seeking to be understood. Simple as that. Or is it?

“There is perhaps nothing more remarkable in the life of Jesus than the apparently inconsistent qualities which are blended together in one harmonious whole.”

To imitate Christ is an intimidating task. It is to make ends meet. It is to be certain in the field of uncertainties. It asks one to make a choice in the midst of too much uncertainties and anxieties. It is to crack one’s brain because it is disoriented by the world which only teaches him to consider himself. To be a good Christian is to be virtuous when everyone is corrupt.

We see in him the most unbending constancy united with the great tenderness of feeling—hatred of sin, and compassion for the offender—a heart superior to all the allurements of pleasure, with a condescending indulgence for the innocent relaxations of life—a mind of universal philanthropy, alive to all the domestic charities—views that extended to the whole human race, and a generous compliance with national and individual peculiarities.”

With all these qualities, what more can a schizophrenic ask for? But we may ask how Jesus did it. What was the style of Christ? Jesus lived a life of struggles and strife. Let us consider that he realized he needed God to make his way through.

In the passages, Christ was always said to be offering all his pains to the Father. In fact, hours before he was arrested, he was in great pain, trying to at least bargain with the Father, to let the chalice, the Cross, pass. But all he needed was the trust in God, that the Father’s will, not his be done. The style of Christ was not entirely his—then. his was with the Father.

“It is difficult to conceive that the portraiture presented to us in the sacred history can be contemplated without benefit; but the chief benefit will be lost if it is forgotten that he whose life was the model of every virtue laid down that life for the sins of the world.”

While we have time—either in our youth or whenever this time finds us—to be able to ponder some truths about our existence and essence makes much for what we ought to be. The fashion of Christ goes beyond his passions, or even his Passion—which was only the culmination, the highlight of a well-worn life well lived.