#70 Candy Canes & Silver Lanes
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Do you recognize these lyrics?

I bor­rowed a few words for Amper­Art #70 Can­dy Canes & Sil­ver Lanes from this song that was pop­u­lar when I was grow­ing up:

It’s Begin­ning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
by Mered­ith Willson

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’ry­where you go;
Take a look in the five & ten glis­ten­ing once again
With can­dy canes & sil­ver lanes aglow.

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in ev’ry store
But the pret­ti­est sight to see is the hol­ly that will be
On your own front door.

A pair of hopa­long boots & a pis­tol that shoots
Is the wish of Bar­ney & Ben;
Dolls that will talk & will go for a walk
Is the hope of Jan­ice & Jen;
& Mom & Dad can hard­ly wait for school to start again.

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’ry­where you go;
There’s a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well,
The stur­dy kind that does­n’t mind the snow.

It’s begin­ning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
& the thing that will make them ring is the car­ol that you sing
Right with­in your heart.

Song from 1951

“It’s Begin­ning to Look a Lot Like Christ­mas”  was writ­ten in 1951 (the year this Amper­Artist was born) by Mered­ith Will­son. The song was orig­i­nal­ly titled “It’s Begin­ning to Look Like Christ­mas”. It has been record­ed by many artists, but was a hit for Per­ry Como & The Fontane Sis­ters with Mitchell Ayres & His Orches­tra on Sep­tem­ber 10, 1951, & released on RCA Vic­tor as a 45 & a 78 (kids, you know what that means? —no, it’s not pix­els per inch). Bing Cros­by record­ed a ver­sion on Octo­ber 1, 1951, which was also wide­ly played. —from Wikipedia

Although I’m glad I found a song with the lyrics Can­dy Canes & Sil­ver Lanes in the first stan­za, I like the mid­dle part best where the melody changes, play­ful­ly & humor­ous­ly describ­ing how the hol­i­day affects the kids & parents.

Origin of the Candy Cane

Accord­ing to folk­lore, in 1670, in Cologne, Ger­many, the choir­mas­ter at Cologne Cathe­dral, wish­ing to rem­e­dy the noise caused by chil­dren in his church on Christ­mas Eve, asked a local can­dy mak­er for some sweet sticks for them. He asked the can­dy mak­er to add a crook to the top of each stick, which would help chil­dren remem­ber the shep­herds who paid vis­it to infant Jesus. —adapt­ed from Wikipedia; full sto­ry here

“It’s Begin­ning to Look a Lot Like Christ­mas” vivid­ly describes the Christ­mases I remem­ber as a kid: the can­dy canes & sil­ver lanes (I think that’s describ­ing the sil­ver gar­land dec­o­rat­ing store aisles), the five-&-ten (we called it a dime store & they actu­al­ly had lots of stuff for a dime, a nick­el, even pen­ny can­dy. Dun­can’s was very con­ve­nient­ly locat­ed on our path to and from school.)

Christ­mas to me used to shim­mer with lots of sil­ver: the tin­sel which my moth­er so care­ful­ly placed on the tree; the shiny lit­tle round non­pareils on the Christ­mas cook­ies that she baked (a dec­o­ra­tion that was always spe­cial to me, but they’ve been dis­con­tin­ued due to the ingre­di­ents — fun­ny, no one’s dead that I know of from eat­ing them); and of course, the alu­minum Christ­mas trees pop­u­lar in the 1960s, with their mag­i­cal col­or wheels. Yes, we had one, as well as white flocked, pink sprayed, & then plain ol’ arti­fi­cial green through­out the years. The year we went back to a real tree some­how felt more like Christ­mas again.

Mer­ry Christ­mas to you, my Amper­Art Subscriber.

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