A Christmas Song Review

 Greetings,

I hope this holiday season has been memorable for everyone. Today, I’m doing something I have rarely ever done on this blog or on my social media accounts. I am writing a review of a song! Yep, you read that right, a song!

Backstory:

Every year for the past several years, I have listened to as many new Christmas songs as I can find. Why? Well… I just love Christmas music, so deal with it! Nah… I’m kidding. 

While I do really love Christmas music, I listen to the music because I love being reminded of why the holiday truly matters to me. The songs encourage me to find the “Christmas Spirit” I lost throughout my mother's last Christmas season in 2008. It gives me a connection to her because she adored Christmas music. 

In October 2008, she was diagnosed with lung and gallbladder cancer. She was given 3-6 months to live and went to be with Jesus in January 2009. As she struggled through the holiday season, the two of us listened to Christmas songs nonstop. I hold those memories very close to my heart, and I strive to honor those memories by selecting my favorite Christmas song every year. It usually takes me all season to figure out which one I like the most; I do not think that will be the case this year.

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Are You Ready?

The Drummer Boy by Frans van Mieris

Tommee Profitt and Stephen Stanley released a version of one of her favorite Christmas carols just after Thanksgiving this year, and it literally stopped me in my tracks. I was stunned! Tears poured out of my eyes instantly, and my thoughts almost immediately went to my mother. It was such a powerful rendition of this classic song that I listened to it on repeat for the rest of the weekend. 

I enjoy listening to Stephen’s collaborations with Tommee, and they have always felt special to me. It's as if Stephen's voice and Tommee's composition style are the perfect mix, and they hit deep every time. This particular collaboration is titled Little Drummer Boy, and I cannot convey in words just how meaningful it has become to me. 

Everyone knows the song, but most of the time, what people remember is the “pa, rum, pum, pum, pum’s.” There was a reason this song meant so much to my mother, and it wasn’t those words. It was the fact that this little boy was so overwhelmed by the arrival of the Savior that he felt too inadequate to offer anything of himself. He felt unworthy!

Despite that feeling, he still offered the best of himself. The message of the song is a testament to all of us that says… We may be unworthy, but what matters is the mindset we have when we come to HIM. As long as we come with a “heart to compose” our praises to HIM, they are accepted. Regardless of the “gift”, it’s the heart that matters. 

Tommee and Stephen beautifully portray this message throughout the song, and I cannot say I have ever heard a more purposeful version of Little Drummer Boy... Ever! The instrumentation respects the traditional sound of the song, while giving it new life and focusing more on the message that I believe honors what Katherine Kennicott Davis envisioned when she composed the original carol in the 1940s. 

It is both an uplifting and meaningful composition. While I am still searching for that song that will take my number one slot this year, Tommee Profitt and Stephen Stanley's Little Drummer Boy will definitely be hard to top this anthem of praise. 

I welcome your suggestions, but I truly encourage you all to take a moment and really listen to this one! See you in the pages, M.J.E.