Dreaming of a white Christmas in Los Angeles in the 1980s
I spent most of the 1980s in Los Angeles, California, and this morning I'm trying to recall my Christmases there. I'm afraid now it all becomes a blur, but the one thing that I distinctly remember was waiting for the song "White Christmas" to play on the radio.
And you may be wondering why I was waiting to hear that song, because around Christmastime White Christmas is played very often, but not with the original lyrics, which for obvious reasons were removed for the hit song, because it really wouldn't have resonated with as many people if they had been kept intact in recordings. But it resonated very strongly with me, and if you've never heard them, here they are:
The sun is shining, the grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the twenty-fourth
And I am longing to be up North.
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...
Songwriter Irving Berlin wrote that in Christmastime of 1942. And while our hearts go out to people who were so far away from home, fighting in World War II, it's hard to be sympathetic to the songwriter, who was obviously in luxurious settings, in Beverly Hills, watching palm trees sway. But I could understand, and it hurts in its own way. I'll see if I can explain, because I can still feel the hurt today.
I wasn't in Beverly Hills, but I was watching the palm trees sway. And like him, I was doing fine financially, and this is where I wanted to be. I had left the snow and cold of Minneapolis long ago, and really had no desire to visit there in December. I still don't want to!
But something that I've learned in a long life is that people often don't give any consideration to someone like Irving Berlin. They see someone who is successful, living in a beautiful place, and that's all they see. But we're all human, even the rich and famous, and at Christmastime we can all hurt, and dream.
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