My most memorable Christmas was in 1960. I was a junior in college spending a semester abroad at our Salzburg "campus". For reasons that I never knew, I went with a friend to the midnight mass at the Cathedral in Salzburg. The day had been dreary, overcast and cold. The Cathedral was not much warmer. While walking there, I was thinking about the fact that the famous Christams song, Silent Night had been written and performed on a night much like this in a small town near Salzburg.
The music was a mass by Michael Hayden, gloriously performed. In itself, the music was enough to lift one's spirits. But on exiting the cathedral, I found that several inches of new snow had fallen and the only footprints were those of others leaving as we were. The sky was clear, though a few massive flakes of snow still fell. One could see the stars above while walking through the narrow streets, past the house where Mozart was born and on through a night that I hoped never to end.
Posted by at December 22, 2003 08:01 PM