🎵 🎄 HOLIDAY MUSIC MONTH: All Those Christmas Clichés

Small children love family traditions, and grownups love family traditions, but sometimes in between there’s a teen-age and young-adult wandering phase where such things don’t seem to matter. If someone in your family is passing through that phase, don’t despair. They’ll come back to all your family traditions and be grateful for them, just like the great American singer Nancy LaMott (1951–1995):

December is Homeschool Holiday Music Month in the River Houses, and throughout the month we’ll be sharing an assortment of seasonal favorites in a great variety of styles and genres — classical and modern, sacred and secular, serious and silly — along with a collection of easy educational notes that will let you teach little musical lessons all along the way.

“All Those Christmas Clichés” was written by the award-winning duo of Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics), and this recording by Nancy LaMott is the best I’ve heard.

All Those Christmas Clichés

I’ve spent Christmas in Peoria, Christmas in Schenectady,
Christmas in Las Vegas and L.A.
And I always thought it couldn’t matter less.
But lately, come December, I confess
I want the tree full of toys and tinsel,
I want the wreath on the red front door,
I want the elves in the yard and each sentimental card
Dripping glitter on the floor,
I want a roof full of plywood reindeer,
I want a road full of horse-drawn sleighs:
All those Christmas clichés.

I want the turkey with all the trimmings,
The turkey mom hardly ever made;
I want the gulp and the tear at the moment that I hear
Johnny Mathis being played;
I want a lake full of perfect skaters,
I want that fruit cake with sugar glaze:
All those Christmas clichés.

Not to mention the snow, not to mention the choir,
Not to mention the candles in the window,
And chestnuts roasting on the fire
Inside a house filled with noise and laughter
Along a street bathed in twinkling light;
I want the bells and the drums, mistletoe
And sugar plums, and kids to tuck in tight.
And as for that guy in the bright red outfit,
Instead of flying off he stays;
All those Christmas clichés.

I want those overblown, corny, heartwarming,
Hallmark, Christmas clichés.

You may have run across Lynn Ahrens’ name before: she wrote many of the songs and lyrics for the popular Schoolhouse Rock! educational programs on TV. And that points us to a whole range of little homeschool lessons you can teach this season whenever you’re listening to holiday musical favorites.

If your students take delight in some particular piece of music, just drop in a question: “I wonder who wrote that?” For many pieces of traditional music (as we noted with “Past Three O’Clock”), the answer may be, “lots of different people over many generations.” But for more modern pieces, the answer is usually simpler. You’ll want to make sure your students understand the three basic roles of performer (the singer or instrumentalist you hear), composer (the writer of the music), and lyricist (the writer of the words). Sometimes these roles are combined into a single person, as with “singer-songwriters.” In other cases, such as the recording above, each role may be held by a different person: LaMott is the performer (along with pianist Christopher Marlowe), Flaherty is the composer, and Ahrens is the lyricist. Knowing the names behind a favorite piece of music will increase your students’ artistic understanding and encourage them to investigate and learn more.

(“All Those Christmas Clichés” is also full of musical quotations — did you catch them? That’s a topic we’ll be taking up again at the end of the month with a special version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”)

What marvelous musical discoveries will you and your students be making in your homeschool during this delightful Holiday Music Month? 🎵

❡ Musical memories: If you’d like to fill your homeschool with some beautiful background sounds during the holidays, why not tune in to the 24-hour Holiday Channel from WQXR, the famous classical music radio station in New York City. “Enjoy the sounds of orchestras, choirs, brass ensembles and more as we celebrate the sacred and secular sounds of the season.” I have it on as background music almost every day at this time of year. Won’t you join me? 📻

❡ Olden times and ancient rhymes: What did the Christmas season sound like a hundred years ago and more? Find out from this wonderful collection of historic recordings of American Christmas music, brought together by the Library of Congress. 🎵

❡ Lift every voice: This is one of our occasional posts on Homeschool Arts & Music. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

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❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡