Reader, I needed you to understand.
Since the holidays, I have felt that same melancholy-naivety feeling for weeks. Like many people, November 1 is here and I long for the Christmases when my family was healthy and alive. I usually ease this by watching old home movies and having a good cry session. It seemed selfish in 2020 with all the things going on. I’m so lucky. I’m healthy! But my heart and head weren’t in sync. I had to sob.
Instantly, I knew what I had to do.
Take a look at the scene in Meet Me In St. Louis where Judy Garland sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” her debut performance of the now-famous holiday tune.
The 1944 classic is still available to view. It was set in New York just before the 1904 World’s Fair. Garland portrays Esther, a girl who falls in love with John the next door. Esther’s father has moved to New York City and her family will need to move before the World’s Fair begins. Esther, even though she is in love with her husband, will need to move with them.
Garland sings to the actor playing the youngest sister of the family, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, as they look out the window at the snowmen in their front yard. They are sad that they must go to New York. You won’t be disappointed. It is worth watching.
But You’ll think. These people did not know about difficult times. But, when the movie was made, the United States was still in World War II. Many people were separated from their families, many of whom were overseas serving during the holidays. Garland performed the song at Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen who were about to leave overseas.
These are just a few of the ideas you can use to think about 2020.
Soon, we will all be together
If fates permit
We’ll just have to keep going until then.
Frank Sinatra performed the song in 1957 and made the last line happier by changing the ending: “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.”
However, 2020 will need a sadder version. If you only have these lines, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” should become the official 2020 carol.
All our problems will vanish next year
Merry Christmas!
Get gay for the Yuletide
All our problems will be far away next year
YouTube commenters agree with me (so evidently I’m wrong):
One wrote, “This version hits different for 2020.”
Another wrote, “It’s so precise right now in Corona Times,”
Let’s take a look at the Sinatra version.
“I love this version of [ sic] where the line ‘until then, we’ll have to make it through somehow’ is used instead of the silly verse ‘hang [ sic]star upon the highest bough’. The original line [ sic] is more serious and heartbreaking. This line is very appealing to me. COVID 2020 has a very profound meaning to this song.
A commenter found it touching to think about how the soldiers who heard the song for the first time, during wartime, might have felt.
“We don’t need to imagine the original, bittersweet version of the song today. It’s our life. Imagine what it meant for the millions of people who heard it first while watching the film or listening to the radio in 1944. They were fighting a war they couldn’t imagine [ sic], in danger, and wondering if it would be possible to reunite with their loved ones for happy times.
