This is Christmas music to me. This came out in the late 80's when I was 18 and I was having the best time of my life; I was with my first partner, we had our own home and great jobs, and I was a wide eyed madly-in-love kid who stupidly thought we'd be together forever. We liked this movie so much that we bought the soundtrack. It was at the end of the year when everyone was getting ready for the holidays, and since his sister and her kids were staying with us we let them have the run of the house while we just stayed in our room when we were home. We had decorated our whole bedroom for Christmas... lighted garland all around the room where the wall meets the ceiling, and a wonderful Christmas tree. It was the first time that I ever had a Christmas tree with just white lights, and it looked so "wintery". We had this massive multi unit stereo system, which was state of the art at the time, with dozens of LED lights on the components... it actually had a record player that loaded/ejected the records from the front of the sound system like a CD player. We only had a single bed and we had to lay on our sides, but we would snuggle together while listening to this soundtrack, and the lights on the tree, the garland and the sound system would make the room glow with coziness. It was a feeling of absolute contentment. And now at 51 years old, on the other side of 9/11 and in the middle of a global pandemic, I get a little nostalgic lump in my throat every time I hear this music.
There's something about the sound of the London Symphony Orchestra that is just, dare I say, magic. Can't put my finger on it. Just so much more rich and brain massagingly perfect than anything else.
I've seen this movie so many times throughout my life and have loved it and the score that occasionally, I find myself humming the theme in various places. Sometimes, people will ask me what I'm humming or whistling and I have to reveal an old score from a movie. lol I do the same with What Lies Beneath and Practical Magic, but this is usually the'go to' melody.
