I’m not ready for it to be Christmas. I’m still coming to terms with it being November. But if you’re out and about shopping anywhere at this point, you’ll be reminded in any direction you look that Christmas is right around the corner. 

So it was that the beau and I found ourselves wandering through stores on Main Street in St. Charles Sunday afternoon, browsing Christmas-y items and listening to piped-in Christmas music. 

In one set of shops, a song caught my attention. Rather than a Christmas carol, it sounded to me like another song I’d heard recently — while attending a rally for Israel. I double-checked when I got home, and sure enough, it was the Israeli national anthem. 

I wondered if it might share its melody with a Christmas tune — in fact, it’s remarkably similar to “The Moldau,” a symphonic poem by Czech composer Bedritch Smetana, which isn’t actually a Christmas song but evokes a wintry tone, so may well be considered Christmas music by some. 

So I don’t know if the shopkeeper (or their music source) was playing The Moldau or the anthem, which is called “Hatikvah,” but in the process of looking into it, I learned the meaning of “Hatikvah”: “The Hope.” 

And I can’t really think of a better way to approach this Christmas than with that.  

This “Moore to the Point” commentary aired on NewsTalkSTL on Monday, November 13. Audio included below.