A Christmas Restored 2025

A holiday tradition around here is a wonderful, imaginative mix of Christmas music graced with a thoughtful essay, both contributed by our valued longtime friend and contributor, Dave Federman. Here are Dave's reflections, followed by a link to his generous Christmas mix. 

I grew up in a world where Christmases were white, or realistically expected to be so. Most houses were strung with lights outside and had highly ornamented trees inside. Holiday iconography—sacred and secular—was on display everywhere. Christ babes in cribs with magi gifts beside them and Santas with bulging gift bags slung over their shoulders shared one-world adjacency. The world was blended in a unity of symbolism. This gave Christmas a credible non-denominational sentimentality.

I’m pretty sure this credibility stemmed from the fact that the Christmases of my youth occurred in wartimes—World War II, the Cold War and Korea. So being home for Christmas fostered deep concern and yearning in families nationwide. The day was meant and needed as much for reassurance and comfort as the exchange of presents. Gift-giving was kid’s stiff. Of course, we kids didn’t feel these longings unless an actual family member would be absent on Christmas Day. But since every member of my family and those of my relatives were, pardon the pun, present and accounted for, kids like me could be exclusively gift-conscious. I can still remember hearing the crinkly sound of paper in the downstairs living room as my parents wrapped gifts for their children. Although they tried to do so as quietly as possible, and spoke in whispers about gift placement, we listened for the soft sonics of gift preparation and arrangement.

However, now in my early 80s, another childhood Christmas sound returns—as strong as the rustle of gift-wrapping. I hear the bells that rang everywhere that day. Their tolling was so omnipresent that it seemed as if their sound was the main resonance of the world. It is that bell-resonant world this Christmas mix remembers and celebrates. It is not a gift-list or shopping-cart world. It is beyond the reach of heartbreak-blue or money-green. It is a world of rapt attention paid to the outdoor sounds of Christmas and the indoor intimacy that ensued. It was an attention even kids like me paid once gifts were opened and went outdoors.

That is why I’ve asked Claude Debussy to be my Ghost of Christmas Past this year, bringing sounds of bells and snow to our ears. Indeed, the mix begins with “La cathédrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral),” the 10th piece in his First Book of Preludes, written between 1909 and 1910. I see this piece as one of restoration not just remembrance. To my ears, Debussy compels this edifice to rise again. And once it is risen, and his music has served as harkening overture, I begin what I call “A Christmas Restored.”

As a result, this is a Christmas with fewer carols and pop music standards than usual. Debussy contributes two more piano works to this mix and England’s Alfred Ketelbey is tapped for two compositions—both conducted by the composer himself in tail-end 1920s recordings. Even Sergei Rachmaninov makes a musical donation. Sure, a few venerable songs are here—but always in imaginative, tasteful orchestrations that feed a synergy of sentiment. I won’t tell you what they are. But some have been aching for inclusion in my Christmas medleys for years. Now they have a chance to be heard, some in duplicate.

So Buon Natale, friends, and I hope this somewhat elephantine mix of 40 selections provides a soundtrack for a Christmas that leaves no trail of credit card debt or drained checking accounts. This is an all-ears Christmas where all you need to spend is your time. No one is poor this Christmas. Everybody is rich in dreams.

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