The One That Started it All

One evening, some years ago when T and I were still new, we were walking in a mall just before Christmas. Madness!  As we walked, I heard the strains of one of my favorite carols, The Carol of the Bells, a piece I had sung many times in several choruses.  This rendition, though...this rendition stopped me in my tracks.

I had to find it.

Into the Warner Brothers store we went, where a wall of TV screen showed a video set to the music.

Who was it?

Where could I find it?

The clerk at the desk managed to find the name of the group, if not the song, and we went straight to the music store (they used to have whole stores dedicated to selling music, children) and bought what we could find of them.

The song, happily, was on the CD.

It is, to this day, the first holiday music I play.

Trans Siberian Orchestra, Christmas Eve in Sarajevo. If you ever get the CD Christmas Eve and Other Stories, read the liner notes.  Powerful, beautiful stuff.

Bird and I love to rock out to Wizards in Winter, sing along to Christmas Nights in Blue, and jam to, well, Christmas Jam from The Lost Christmas Eve.  The Christmas Canon from The Christmas Attic is one of my holiday ringtones on my phone.

I want to sing with them some day.  Seriously.

I have all of their music up to Night Castle, now.

There may not be a tree at Casa de Crazy, and there may not be lights or decorations, but there will always be TSO in the CD player.  It wouldn't be the holidays without them.

Here, then, is that video, the one that started it all: