The Christmas soundtrack of my childhood includes this album by the Harry Simeone Chorale. A favorite is the title song: The Little Drummer Boy

“Song For A Winter’s Night.” This winter tune was written & sung by Gordon Lightfoot, and the words are lovely:
“The lamp is burning low upon my table top, the snow is gently falling…
I’d be happy just to hold the hands I love, on this winter night with you.”
This version is by Sarah McLachlan. Song For A Winter’s Night

One of my favorite memories of singing in the Women’s Choir at Houghton College was the year that we performed Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols.   Here is the St Paul Cathedral Choir singing a favorite piece from that collection, Balulalow, which is a Scottish word meaning “lullabye” –Mary’s song to the infant Christ child.

The forecast said thundershowers and I thought we’d have the same glancing torrent that we’ve had for months, bouncing off the parched earth and rolling away. But I awoke to the soft sound of droplets dripping off leaves and spattering on the sidewalk, the kind of rain that washes dust off the leaves and sinks into the soil. I can’t even remember when we’ve last had this kind of rain, sometime last spring, maybe. Long may it rain.

We’re having a heat wave in September and the cicadas think it’s August.
But there’s a sweetness in the air, and a promise of autumn in the turning dogwoods.

it’s the kind of night
when even the tallest trees
are filled with fireflies
that glimmer in the darkness, competing against the moon.

First fireflies show up
in the dusk of the evening.
The dog breathes a sigh
as does the wind in the trees.
The moon and the stars peek through.

The dog is restless. 
First one spot, then another
Trying to get cool. 
The air conditioner fights. 
80 degrees at midnight. 

At daybreak the sun
has woven fingers of light
through branches of trees
and over the windowsill;
a welcoming wake up call.