Nine Mornings of Christmas

by B.J. Stolbov

I’m startled awake by every dog in the neighborhood going off, howling and barking. I’ve never heard such an ungodly uproar.  Nothing like this has happened here before.  It’s pitch black outside. There are no streetlights in this neighborhood; there are no streets, only dirt trails out there.  I roll over and look at my clock.  It’s 3:30AM.  I have no idea what’s going on.

There’s a light on in the kitchen and my host Mother is up.  She is boiling water, making herself a cup of tea. 

“What’s going on?”  I ask.

“Mass,” she answers. 

“Mass?”

“Four o’clock mass.”  She sits down.  “The Catholics are going to church.”  She sips her tea.

“At four o’clock?” 

It’s nine days before Christmas. The Philippines is the only Christian country in Asia. Beginning this morning, December 16, the Christians will get up and go to early morning mass every day until Christmas. The Catholics have to wake up this early because their churches will be full and the mass will start exactly at 4AM.

My host Mother, sitting in her bathrobe, heating a larger pot of water for her bucket shower, is Protestant, a Methodist.  For the next nine days, she will attempt to attend morning services at the much more reasonable hour of 6AM. And she invites me.

I’ve been living in the Philippines for a year now. I’m a 61-year-old male and, among other various professions, I’m a writer.  Rather than retire, I’m way too young to retire and this writer doesn’t want to retire, I decided to join the Peace Corps.  Now, I’m living a fascinating life with a Filipino family and teaching high school English in one of the most remote and beautiful provinces in the Philippines.

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Nothing Says Christmas Like 130 Tubas

words + photos by Tom Adkinson

Walgreen’s may put up garland and tinsel the day after Halloween, but that and all the other premature signs of Christmas are a flop. Christmas doesn’t reign in my heart until I hear a sanctuary filled with the sound of 130 tubas.

It’s TUBACHRISTMAS, a time when people with big brass instruments converge to toot out deliriously delightful renditions of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” and solemn and touching versions of “Silent Night.” The assembled spectators sing along. It’s like “Mitch Miller Meets John Philip Sousa.”

TUBACHRISTMAS for me is in Nashville, adding another layer to the city’s well-earned nickname of Music City.

The first TUBACHRISTMAS was in New York in 1974, and Nashville’s began in 1986. It echoed through several acoustically challenged venues before settling at First Baptist Church, where the sound is fine and the pews are comfortable 

After the first New York gig, a movement began, and you now can hear TUBACHRISTMAS performances across the nation. You’ll find a list at, you guessed it, www.tubachristmas.com.

A spot check of states for 2010 reveals 12 TUBACHRISTMAS performances in New York, 10 in California and 21 in Texas. There are even enough tuba players in Idaho and North Dakota for three performances and in each state.

All of these performances are a tribute to a William Bell, born on Christmas Day 1902 and acknowledged as America’s premier tuba player and teacher of the 20th Century. He played for John Philip Sousa and Toscanini. The idea is to honor “all great artists/teachers whose legacy has given us high performance standards,” says the TUBACHRISTMAS website.

While anything but a church service, the Nashville TUBACHRISTMAS has an appropriate touch. The Baptists allow a collection to support a weekly meal for the homeless just down the street at Downtown Presbyterian Church, a venue where TUBACHRISTMAS once played.

Nashville’s TUBACHRISTMAS is December 14, but if I want to hear “Santa Wants a Tuba for Christmas” just one more time this year, I can hop a non-stop flight to Dallas for a Christmas Eve show.

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Tom Adkinson has worked in travel journalism and travel publicity for almost 40 years as a writer, editor and PR professional. His articles and photos have appeared in publications throughout the U.S. He is a Marco Polo member of the Society of American Travel Writers. 

A CHRISTMAS STORY IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, TEXAS

by Pete Thompson

When I was nine years old, my family went to the middle of nowhere in the middle of Texas where my dad grew up.  I had many aunts and uncles and their offspring who lived on several farms in the area; others had moved away to various other places like Dallas and such.  I did not know that this was going to be the last family Christmas gathering with my grandmother, who to me seemed older than hell.  Sorry, grandma, but I knew that word at nine plus a lot more and used them without remorse.  "Goddamn" was a hard one to master, being a Baptist, when I was scared to death of our preacher sending me to hell for even thinking it.   

We drove out to the farms in a new 1953 Ford, later to become my first car, to a wonderland of hard wood forests and smells of farm animals I had never experienced before.  I was growing up in the small town of Artesia, NM, where we moved 2 years after I was born in Roswell, NM.  In Artesia all the smells we had were mostly of the oil refinery located just east of town, one of our favorite play grounds if we didn't get caught.  Some believed it to be the smell of pure money and for some it was.  I preferred the farm smells to the refinery although now they say it's all the same, whoever the hell "they" are?

On Christmas Day, I was presented with a pellet rifle and a million lead pellets.  It was a single shot so I kept a mouth full of pellets for quick reloading.  Anybody who wanted me to talk to them had to wait until I spit all the spittle covered pellets out into my hand.  I also received enough firecrackers to wreak havoc on my small young world.  I could shoot everything that moved and blow up everything that didn't, which I commenced do immediately.

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