Piano brings sound of holiday joy to our house | THE MOM STOP

For much of my childhood, we didn’t have a fireplace at home, and so we hung our stockings on the piano in our living room. It is one of my earliest Christmas memories, standing next to that piano, excitedly opening our stockings on Christmas morning.

It was an old, upright, mahogany piano from the early 1900s that my parents had bought second-hand sometime in the late 1970s. In elementary school, my sister and I took piano lessons from the same piano teacher that our mother and uncles had also taken lessons from in childhood.

While I learned the basics, performed in at least one recital and a couple of early piano competitions, my sister did much better than I did. Perhaps that was because I hated taking piano lessons and complained of feeling sick whenever it was time to go to my lesson. My sister ended up going to about twice as many lessons as I did, since she often went in my place.

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Still, to this day, I know how to play three songs on the piano — "Chopsticks," if you can call that a tune, since it seems a requirement for any kid who grew up with a piano in the home — plus “Silent Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

Long after the piano lessons ended, my sister and I would put on a “concert” for our mom and grandparents each Christmas Eve. I would sometimes make programs, sometimes I wouldn't, but the songs were always the same, because while my sister had more music she could play, I only knew the two Christmas hymns by heart.

Still, even on Christmas Day as we got older and younger cousins came along and eventually our own children, the sound of children creatively playing around on a piano was a common occurrence at both my mother’s home and my grandparents’ house on Christmas. It was like the smell of baked Christmas cookies at my grandmother’s home, or the sight of all the presents under the tree ― one of those senses that was synonymous with being together during the holidays.

Commotion. Noise. Family. A little chaos, but happiness.

Last week, as I cleaned the house to get ready to host a Christmas party, the doorbell rang ― it was the movers, who had arrived in Tuscaloosa with the old family piano in tow. Because my mother is moving soon after the holidays from the house she’s lived in for 30 years, she asked me if I wanted the piano.

It would make more sense if my sister got the piano, since she still knows how to play it far better than I do. But she inherited my grandmother’s piano years ago and doesn’t need two. And so, the group of movers set up ramps over the front steps of our house and precariously moved the heavy, 120-year-old instrument into my home, setting it up in our front office.

As soon as the movers left, my 8-year-old daughter ran down the stairs and into the foyer shouting “The piano is here! The piano is here!”

Of my three children, she is the most excited to take piano lessons. I can only pray she’s more successful at it than I was. But after the piano arrived, my 12-year-old son started playing it also, watching YouTube videos of piano lessons and quickly picking up the hymn “Ode to Joy.” He’s now interested in learning how to play, too.

I sat down with him, attempting to teach him to play “Chopsticks” before playing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” from memory. It was a little rusty, after more than 30 years, but I finished the hymn.

I still had it.

Later that afternoon, as I was in my kitchen making more Christmas cookies, the sound of my kids playing around on the piano reverberated through the house.  And it couldn’t help but think it somehow made our house feel more complete, how it felt more like Christmas.

How, having the sound of my kids playing the piano, brought me back to my own childhood. It makes my house feel more like home

Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at momstopcolumn@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Piano brings sound of holiday joy to our home | THE MOM STOP