Soundtrack to Christmas on shuffle, not repeat
Note: This column appears in the 12/22 issue of The Glendale Star and the 12/23 issue of the Peoria Times. Also: SAP ALERT! Before I could drive to school and received the keys to the ol’ Dodge Spirit—provided I dropped her off and picked her up from work—my mom often had to pick me up from high school basketball practice. I attended an all-boys Catholic high school that was about 35 minutes from our house, even though we lived in a reputable school district and I could have attended the local high school, which was literally within walking distance, for free. Most of those seemingly long rides home in the dark in which I was filled with teenage angst have blended together into an indecipherable blur. Except for the ones in December. On those rides home during the Christmas season, my mom had playing, on a constant loop, Stevie Wonder’s Christmas album. The album is from 1967, right before the zenith of his creative prime, and it existed largely under the radar until recently, as a few...