Hot July weather! How about a transport to a cooler time of year like Christmas? Yes, Christmas is months away, but some advertising genius came up with the idea of “Christmas in July,” so how about a snowball fight?
How Did Christmas in July Start? Was it Too Counterbalance the Hot Weather?
I found two interesting stories on the internet vying about the origination of this idea.
“Christmas in July’s meaning is simply to share joy and recreate the wonderful feeling of Christmastime. In the United States, the idea was born in a girls’ camp out of creativity and enthusiasm for the holiday. In Europe and Australia, apart from the strong fervor for the holiday spirit, this occasion is also related to the weather. Europeans longed for the coolness of December, while Australians associated their July winter with the cold Christmases of countries in the Northern Hemisphere.”
https://www.balsamhill.com/inspiration/all-about-christmas-in-july
“The U.S. Post Office and U.S. Army and Navy officials, in conjunction with the American advertising and greeting card industries, threw a Christmas in July luncheon in New York in 1944 to promote an early Christmas mailing campaign for service men overseas during World War II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_July#Origins
So, whoever thought it up—thank you because as a relief from the hot weather, Christmas in July gives us a focal respite.
So, kick off your shoes, grab a cool ice-cold drink and let’s look at a cold chapter in my book, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir.
Chapter Fourteen
CHRISTMAS CAROLING IN MY TWENTIES
I continued the Christmas caroling activity from my youth into my twenties. My ex-husband (let’s call him Rudolph) and I moved to Loveland, Colorado in the late 70s and attended All Saints Episcopal Church. At that time, several couples our age attended our church, and we did lots of activities together. And our whole church was very active.
When Christmas came around our first year there, someone suggested Christmas caroling. Immediately I returned to my caroling experience in Branson, Colorado, and I whole-heartedly agreed, “Let’s do it!”
Someone from the congregation provided a flatbed trailer, and we stacked bales of hay on it to sit on. The much-anticipated night arrived, and I layered and bundled up! Yes, this would be fantastic.
I loved the multi-generational participation of our church. We had older people, teenagers, and young couples with their children. We had all ages!
I knew it was cold, but singing familiar Christmas songs and the fellowship warmed me through and through—until we stopped in front of a bank and saw the temperature on its marquee: six degrees below zero! I heard a collective gasp as we realized how cold it was! At the sight of that thermometer, the songs and fellowship no longer warmed us.
See, Loveland is about 250 miles north of Branson, where I grew up, and that makes a lot of difference in the weather. In Loveland, we got lots more snow and colder weather. When I thought of Christmas caroling, I thought of the cold of south‐ eastern Colorado, not northern Colorado.
Immediately, my face froze. My fingers and toes tingled, and I gasped—six degrees below zero! Numb and painful!
Others near me stomped their feet and seemed to react to the low temperature. We still had several stops before hot chocolate and cookies.
Pulling my snow cap down over my ears, I snuggled close to the people sitting next to me. Then I wrapped my scarf around my head and mouth. Turning to my friend next to me, I only saw eyes peeping through her cap and scarf; we laughed at our get-ups. So, I pulled the wool blanket draped over my legs up to my chin.
I continued singing my familiar Christmas songs as best I could, even though I started to shiver with the cold, but I noticed our singing had become muffled. I looked around, and everyone with a scarf had it wrapped around their mouths. Children had moved in close to their parents, seeking warmth and comfort. Somehow, those familiar songs didn’t warm me the way they did before I knew how cold it was outside!
I suffered through the rest of the evening, but the extreme cold made the reward of the hot chocolate and cookies at the end that much more warming and delicious. After warming up when the crowd dispersed, a festive air remained. But I still shudder at that thermometer reading and the hours I sat on that trailer, cold to the bone! Yet I was happy out Christmas caroling!
That was the last time I did Christmas caroling outside in the cold, sitting on a bale of hay. I have moved to a warmer part of the world—New Mexico—but caroling never came up here. I cherish that memory from so long ago, but not the cold!
Larada Horner-Miller, Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir, (Horner Publishing Company, 2023), 63-66.
Finally,
So, did that help the heat right now in July during this run of hot weather? Six degrees below zero! Hopefully, you enjoyed a cool drink, sitting in your air-conditioned living room, and felt relief.
If you haven’t bought this book yet, I’m running a “Christmas in July Special” on the e-book as an early Christmas gift—FREE—from July 16-20. So head on over to Amazon this Tuesday for a great deal to counterbalance the hot weather! If you forget on Tuesday, you can go Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday!
Check out my recent interview at Southwest Writers.
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