Sharing the song “Jingle Bells” yesterday that Indy sang, reminded me of another Christmas song that a different little girl once sang years ago. It was called “C Is For The Christ Child” and the recording is of Indy’s mama Joey singing it. Both as a grown woman and a little girl.
Joey had told me about the song for years, long before she and I recorded it for our “Farmhouse Christmas” album in 2011. I had never actually heard it before until she found the cassette tape and played it for me. When it was originally recorded... like Indy, Joey was only 4 or 5 years old..
This recording of both’ ‘older and younger’ Joey was one of more than a dozen songs that we recorded for our one and only Christmas album for the Vanguard/Sugar Hill labels, but ultimately the song didn’t make the record. And for the most part, this recording has been sitting on a hard-drive, lost for all these years.
Since today is Christmas day and the song is about exactly that, I thought it would be a good time to dig it out and bring it to life, once and for all. With all the fun songs we sing each year about Santa and Rudolph and wreaths and mistletoe, it’s a wonderful reminder of what Christmas spelled out really means.
The beginning of the recording is Joey and I with producer Gary Paczoca in a recording studio in Nashville in 2011... but about 30 seconds into it, it switches to a recording of Joey singing with her daddy Jack playing guitar in 1979 or 1980 back in Indiana where she grew up.
What a special moment to have captured on tape forever. And even more so, in contrast to our little girl Indiana being on tape singing a song at the same age, 40 years later.
Merry Christmas everyone.
