TSO=Christmas

     What's your holiday "thing?"  For many, it's the lights. (But too many flashing displays ignite my migraine fuse like a 4th of July gone very bad.)  For others, food is first on their list. (Holiday fare is a SERIOUS second place in my book.)  While for many people, OMG, it IS God, as that was the original point to the whole shebang, don't forget.  For me and my family, though, music is the number one can't-do-without element to the season.

     And thanks to my sister, Anita, we have a library of tunes for all our holiday moods.  She never fails to tuck a Christmas CD du jour into her Fed Exed box of gifts each year.


     Over the years we've selected a few favorites.  We pump up for serious shopping (online) with the manic Mack truck of a band Mannheim Steamroller and we listen to Lorie Line for laughs.  (She's a this-side-of-cheesy but good Minnesota pianist.) For the good old standards we enjoy "Harry (Connick, Jr.) for the Holidays."  And the Hanson's "Snowed In" brings misty middle school nostalgia for my kids.

     On Christmas Eve when we are quiet and reverent and half asleep from the feast of wild rice and wine and cookies and cocoa, we turn to the King's College Choir of Cambridge University (James bought it there on a college trip) and their truly glorious sounds.


     But reigning supreme over our family's Christmas music world is the king of all Christmas bands - Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  TSO is the best metal music/rock drama for Christmas ever.  Christian received our first TSO CD, "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" and we've been hooked ever since. One year Christian rocked our world with tickets to a TSO concert in St. Paul and Dad and Christian have a special tradition of playing Al Pitrelli's guitar extravaganza "O Holy Night" over the phone at midnight on the 12th day of Christmas.

     We are fiercely loyal to TSO and refuse to call the cheesy parts of TSO dramas "cheesy" and their political pursuits should win the Nobel Prize, for sure.

     So serious a TSO family are we that we all suffered a panic attack last year when not one TSO CD could be found in the house.  After an hour or two thinking the whole holiday had gone to hell and after many damns, F words and (my favorite,) this is a nightmares had been uttered, we finally found one.  Good times followed.  Good stuff.  Good stuff, indeed.

     So we wish you a metal Christmas and a headbanging New Year.  (That's another story and another CD!)