things that make me tear up

It may be the season, but I feel a little weepy these days. And since it seems to be the pervasive, I'm going to try to list these as they occur to me.

So here goes:
A Christmas Carol - at Civic Theater - but in a good way.

1. The music that plays in the background of Civic Theater's Christmas Carol. I don't know why but I actually tear up every single time that show begins. There's something quietly gorgeous about that single piano and harpsichord (?) - I guessing. I think it's a harpsichord. The songs are familiar but the arrangements bring a different, sophisticated and understated beauty to them

2. The waltz in Act 2 - the palpable sadness of what might have been touches something inside me as Ebenezer Scrooge and his long lost fiance Belle take one step then another together, in his heart and mind if no where else. Who doesn't live with a "what might have been" in their own life? The music is haunting and the dance steps are perfect but it's not what the actors are doing that brings on the tears. I have a feeling it's my own regrets about what I've chosen not to do or not to act on - without quite knowing if I've made the right choices. Trouble is, I don't get a chance - like Ebenezer - to have anyone point out the folly of at least some of my decisions.

3. And because I tend to bookend things in my life, I tear up at the end of the show, too. I simply can't watch the narrator - AKA Tiny Tim - walk up that aisle without getting overcome with emotion. It's a lovely little surprise, courtesy of the talented professionals at Civic who stage this production each year.

There's also -
Josh Groban hitting the high note at the end of Oh Holy Night. I'm not joking. I've heard it dozens of times and I still really do tear up when he hits it. One note. And my eyes fill.

The voiceover by Boris Karloff in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. When he explains, as the Grinch stood puzzling and puzzling, that "It came just the same. It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags!" I'm on my way and then he closes the deal with "the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day."

There's more. I take after my Dad that way. My sister and I would constantly marvel at how he could cry at almost anything at almost anytime and never understood it. Turns our sentiment is a gene you pass along to your children, or at least to one of your children.

I'll add to these from time to time but tonight it's all about Christmas. And what I need to do and how "far behind" I am on the tasks that "need" to be done for the holiday. Maybe I need to listen a little more closely to the stories that bring out so much emotion in me.