"A Winter's Tale"

For this week, I've been inspired to talk about one of the Moody Blues' less famous tunes, "A Winter's Tale."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE4UUZpOkqA

I have a sort of spiritual connection (for lack of a better term) with the Moody Blues. My parents are both huge fans of their music, so they took me to a concert when I was a baby and even named me after the lead drummer Graeme Edge. It's a little ironic because, personally, I've never really cared that much for most of their music, with some exceptions. Oh well. Wrong generation, I guess.

"A Winter's Tale" is a song from their album compilation of winter-related songs called December. I have lots of fond memories of listening to the album in my mom's car on Christmas Eve as we drove to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Looking back, it's a good way to make me feel the joy of the holiday season.

To be honest, I probably could've chosen just about any song from this album, but there's a reason why I picked this one. Without really paying that much attention to the lyrics, just the tone and melody of this song makes me picture a forest landscape covered in snow on a starry night. It's a beautiful image that always puts me in the holiday spirit. I just love it so much.

When I was a kid, I loved winter entirely because it meant just two things: snow and Christmas. I always anticipated getting to play out in the snow, throwing snowballs and sledding in tow on my uncle's four-wheeler. One year, we even had enough to build a real snowman. Winter also brought promises of a magical Christmas season. They say the holidays are the most magical time of year and back then, I really felt it.

Sadly, now that I'm an adult, winter has become much more of an inconvenience. We still get snow days off from school, but since I'm now stuck at school anyway with nothing really exciting to do, it doesn't make much difference. Plus, to make it worse, I've developed eczema on my hands, so now I've got blisters and band-aids to look forward to every year. As for Christmas, it's still the best part about winter in my book, but sadly, the magic has more-or-less dwindled away with age. I still look forward to the holiday season with great anticipation every year, but it just doesn't quite excite as much as it used to. Just one more of the many perks of growing up, I suppose.

Well, now that I've thoroughly depressed you yet again, time to wrap this up. "A Winter's Tale," along with the other songs on the Moody Blues' December album, are a holiday tradition that I really like to revisit every year if just to attempt to maintain the thrill of the winter season.