Our Christmas Gift in 2004

The 1 1/2 decades I spent living in a Travis Heights bungalow were quite enjoyable. I felt fortunate to call that Austin neighborhood home. But the years and the events tended to blur together, which was all the more reason to move to Korea—a change of pace and far, far away.

One of my neighbors was named Mark. I was hanging my newly washed clothes on the line in the backyard in early December 2004 while talking to him. Mark, an infidel and an atheist, was bemoaning the approach of Christmas. “This time of year always depresses me,” he said. I, a dedicated believer in the Christian gospel, responded thus: “Me, too, but for different reasons.” Few people seemed to take Christmas—the birth of Jesus Christ, God’s only son, fulfillment of numerous Jewish prophecies, king of kings and light of the world—seriously. The holiday had been devolving for centuries, and that process was only getting faster. I remember parties, candy canes, heavy emphasis on buying and spending, and lots of silly, superficial stuff. Happy holidays and season’s greetings? Yeah, right!

After my little backyard chat with Mark, I was determined to do something halfway meaningful for the upcoming Christmas season. One of the Lord’s most poignant quotes was along the lines of “When you help the least of my brothers and sisters, you help me.” Now about a mile from my home, at the intersection of South Congress Avenue and East Live Oak Street, stood the Austin Nursing Center. I had passed by this place hundreds if not thousands of times. Patients occasionally came out in their wheelchairs to get some fresh air. Another common sight was an ambulance taking away a dead body. It appeared that a lot of dying went on at the Austin Nursing Center.

I walked in soon thereafter and asked to speak to the administrator. I told her of my plan to organize a night of Christmas caroling. Permission was given, and I got to work. I found and printed out the lyrics of about a dozen sacred Christmas songs, such as “O, Holy Night,” “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,” “Away in a Manger,” “What Child is This?,” “Silent Night,” “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” “Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem” and “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” There were emphatically no secular songs—nothing about Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, reindeer, sleigh rides or rocking around the Christmas tree.

I invited just about every friend who might be interested. Mark, God bless him, was left off the list. It came down to me, Jill Montgomery, Tom Roudebush, David Kendall, and Stan Van Hoose and his three teenage children. We met in the front room of the nursing home at about 7:30 p.m. a couple of days before Christmas and discussed the plan, which involved walking the halls as we sang. We were prepared for just about any eventuality, but really, how bad could it be? I doubted we would be booed and thrown out on our ears. I should note that Jill was a professional singer and the leader of a popular group called the Studebakers. Not only did she have a fine voice, but she was accustomed to being up on stage. Her experience proved useful soon enough.

Jill, Tom, David, Stan, his three kids and I walked out of that room and, without any kind of introduction, began to sing. We sang two stanzas of each song. There was no hurry in our steps or in our caroling. I must say, it was an immediate success as this ordinarily dreary nursing home was enlivened with the voices of strangers who had come to be with the patients if only for awhile.

We sang in the halls and in the doorways of bedridden people. I believe in a couple of instances, we even went inside a room and did an entire song for one sick, lonely and sad person. The nursing home, which was laid out in the form of an H, had two floors, and we covered every part of it. We finished our repertoire and started over again as Jill effectively took control. Nothing was more touching than when a grizzled, one-legged man came out into the hall in his wheelchair and followed us wherever we went. At one point, he wept as we sang and Jill held his hand.

After about one hour of singing sacred Christmas songs, it was time to go. I am sure some of the patients and nurses thanked us, although I have no specific memory of that. Our perambulating concert was not reprised in 2005 or 2006, and I was gone by 2007. The event had been a small sacrifice to me and my seven fellow cantors. If, in the distant future, one of us is stuck in a miserable nursing home with no family or friends to cheer us at Christmas time, maybe some strangers will come and do it in their stead.