No. 177 – Angel

Performer: Pearl Jam

Songwriters: Eddie Vedder, Dave Abbruzzese

Original Release: Christmas 1993 single

Year: 1993

Definitive Version: None.

This is by far the best song Pearl Jam never has released on an album. It wasn’t on Lost Dogs, and my guess is Eddie didn’t want to have to turn over any royalty money to Dave, who, of course, was fired from the band in a rather acrimonious split. So, I doubt it’ll ever be released. You can find it fairly easily though.

As I write this, Laurie and I are fresh off seeing Chanticleer, which is a men’s choral group, sing at the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago—a really cool church on the Mag Mile across the street from the Hancock Tower. I took the day off work so we could get our Christmas tree, which we’d decorate the next day. Christmas is in the air.

I could write any of a dozen stories about this song. (No, Chanticleer didn’t do Angel, but that would have been cool.) With the time of the season in mind, I’ll keep to one closer to when I discovered this song earlier in the 21st Century—my favorite Christmas.

I’m not a Christmas-phile. Typically Christmas corresponds with the busiest time at work, so it’s already hectic. Then it’s a lot of tight scheduling and racing around doing all the things that you have to do to “get ready” for Christmas. Of course, no one HAS to do anything, but let’s face it: Certain things are expected during Christmastime, and I would feel worse if I didn’t do those things. So there’s a certain amount of stress—particularly because everyone around you is dealing with their own stress, too. It’s less enjoyable than it should be.

In all candor, I would like Christmas a lot better if the whole gift-giving thing went away. Then it would be Thanksgiving with better lighting and music. Now THAT would be a holiday I could embrace.

Well, in 2002, I got a taste of my ideal Christmas. The best part of it was it happened completely out of left field.

Matt, my senior-year roommate at Wabash, and I had an ongoing “date.” Since we’d left Wabash, whenever possible, we’d get together to watch the new Star Trek movie together. It started with Star Trek IV and continued through the years with a few skips due to location.

In 2002, Star Trek: Nemesis came out just before Christmas, so Matt and I scheduled a get-together to see it. I’d drive out to Marysville, where he lived with his new wife, Janine, and we’d see the movie at the little theater in town. (I had been Matt’s best man at he and Janine’s wedding the previous summer.)

I drove out on a Sunday after Matt and Janine—both ministers—had completed their day’s work. It snowed the night before, but Marysville got more of it and was almost completely white. After New Year’s, I’m ready for it to be 70 degrees again, but a good snow before Christmas puts me in a good mood.

Matt and Janine lived in a typical small-town old house within walking distance of downtown Marysville. It once had been divided into two apartments, but Matt and Janine rented the whole house, with their bedroom on the second floor and their living space on the first.

We were going to have dinner ahead of time and then walk to town to see the movie, so I stopped for barbecue at this place whose name escapes me on the edge of Marysville (and now is closed). The Grump tipped me off to it, and it was every bit as good as advertised. Matt and Janine didn’t know about it, but after our dinner, they insisted it would be a regular stop. (I went every time I went to visit them afterward.)

Then we bundled up and headed out to the theater. It was a particularly cold night, the kind of cold that makes you appreciate a heated indoor spot. The movie was OK—it was no First Contact—but what was better was the hike to and from the theater.

Most of the houses and businesses were lit up for the holiday, and that made for an agreeable walk even as cold as it was. I’m a sucker for Christmas lights and decorations, and it was cool to see how well-decorated Marysville was. The residents seemed to embrace their small-town duty to try and recapture the bygone look of a Currier and Ives print updated in color.

I was going to drive home after the movie, but while walking through town, we decided we to get a hot cider to soak up the season a bit more, but the two bars we walked past weren’t open. OK, we’ll take care of this ourselves when we get back to home base. When we reached their home, a flash of inspiration struck Matt: Hey, let’s put up the Christmas tree.

Matt said he got their tree that day at a cutting farm a few miles out of town, but I declined his invitation. Don’t you want to wait for when your boys (with their mother that weekend) come to visit in a few days? Nah, he said. It’d go better and faster if we did it before they got here.

Decorating Christmas trees just happened to be one of my favorite activities, always has been. In fact, years later, after I moved to Chicago, Laurie and I went to a Christmas party where the whole purpose was to decorate the hosts’ tree. The dining room had been turned over to construction paper and glitter glue and thrift-store objects and whatnot. As the mood struck, you just sat down and created whatever ornament came to mind. It was a blast. Until further notice, that was my favorite party of all time.

OK, Matt, twist my arm …

So we brought the tree in from their garage out back and set it up in the front room, just off the entryway. The streetlights and colored decorations gave a ghostly frozen glow just outside the window, but it was warm and merry in Matt and Janine’s front room. After everything was brought in, we closed the doors, so they could turn on the fireplace that provided additional heat.

As Matt and I worked on the lights, Janine found a radio station that played Christmas music. She then provided the coup de grace, bringing in a plate of sausage and cheese, and the bottle of wine I brought to them as a house-warming Christmas present—it was a good one I was happy to share.

So we decorated their Christmas tree while sipping great wine and listening to Christmas music, including even a few oldies I grew up on. Before long, we had everything decorated, and there was only one thing to do—have a seat.

With me in the recliner and Matt and Janine on their couch, we turned off the lights off, so the only light was provided by the fire in the fireplace, the Christmas tree and any visible outdoor illumination. That moment—the heat, the lighting, the music, the wine and noshes, the companionship and that it all came together at the spur of the moment—was perfect. Even the fact that I was unattached—something I felt painfully aware at one point—couldn’t diminish my overall contentment.

That night was everything I love about Christmas and nothing I don’t like about Christmas in one fell swoop. I’ve had other good Christmases, before as well as since, but never one that came together like that in 2002.

It was so good, in fact, that Matt and Janine insisted I celebrate with them the next year, too. That Christmas included me going out with Matt to cut down the tree, and it was fine, but it wasn’t as good as the year before.

They say you can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, but the perfect is idealized for a reason. When it happens, you have to appreciate it.