NORAD tracks Santa...

...it taps my inner child.  I track Santa every Christmas...thank you NORAD!

I've celebrated Christmas as long as I can remember, and even used to go caroling - singing We Three Kings of Orient Are - lustily and (sadly) somewhat tunelessly.

My favorite tradition is personal - my Mum and I would listen to a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols each year. It is broadcast from Kings College Chapel, Cambridge and we would listen to it over shortwave radio. The service was at once so far away and yet so near; I can still hear the rich sounds pouring out into the master bedroom.

Irrelevant Christmas Factoid: I've written before about my grandfather - one of the first batches of Indian Indian Civil Service officers. He was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge to study. I had the chance to visit a few years ago and got a great tour from the Alumni office. I wrote then that when we walked around the corner to the Kings College Chapel, my jaw quite literally dropped. It's a stunning, soaring, chapel - completed in 1547. I stayed that evening to listen to the choir. While the members have obviously changed, this is the same choir that my Mum and I used to listen to all those many years ago on the radio. As I closed my eyes to listen to the music, it seemed that just for a while, she was physically there as well. She would have loved it.

Image: Wikipedia, with no copyright attached