My parents got home from their honeymoon just in time for a 1st Christmas together. They bought a random 8-track of carols from a local shop. My mom loved the album.

They hauled that stereo around for 50yrs—across 10000 miles & multiple moves—only to play the 8-track on xmas. /1

As technology “improved,” my dad must have bought 100 other Christmas albums — vinyl, cassettes, CDs; classic, hip.

Mom scoffed at them all.

It wasn’t Christmas until the 8-track was fired up, endlessly looping between maybe 30 min of tracks with that fabulous analog sound /2

The album never made it to cassette or CD. We could never find a copy anywhere. So the 8-track had to be preserved. /3

Every year, with fingers crossed, we turned it on again, hoping it hadn’t degraded too much not to play. We never took it out of the stereo, just in case. Turn the knob, the lights come on, and slowly it would creak back to life, echoing up from the past, quietly, then louder /4

Every time, Mom would cheer. “Huzzah!” she would actually say, which is probably why I say it now. And we would listen to that damn thing over and over and over while cooking and doing puzzles and playing games and opening presents and eating Christmas brunch. /5

In its last years, the stereo, existing only for the purpose of the 8-track, lived in a corner of the dining room awaiting Christmas, 2 speakers w/ an 8-track player on top.

Somehow, it was lost when we were clearing out the house. I was devastated. It was Mom’s favorite.
/6

But — because the internet doesn’t *need* to be a cesspit — some genius is preserving lost Christmas albums, and my sister found it again on YouTube! It’s from the vinyl instead of the 8-track — but close enough.

Hope you enjoy as much as Mom did, all :)