Country tradition
Michael Martin Murphey brings long-running Cowboy Christmas Ball back to Oklahoma City
Charles Dickens’ seminal novella “A Christmas Carol” takes place in Victorian London, the Oscar-winning film “Miracle of 34th Street” follows Santa to New York City, and the beloved 1950 song “Silver Bells” pays homage to “Christmas time in the city.”
But for Michael Martin Murphey, a country Christmas comes closest to the true spirit of the season.
“I am a Christian, I do celebrate Christmas for the reason for Christmas, and whether you’re a believer or not, it’s pretty astounding that the tradition of Christmas is that the savior of the world is gonna be born in the feed trough,” Murphey said. “It’s a pastoral story. It’s these people who reported into the little town of Bethlehem to pay their taxes, and it was a back-country little place.”
Since the Christmas story was first told to the shepherds watching over the livestock, it’s fitting that the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter is marking the 25th anniversary of his Cowboy Christmas tour, which celebrates a distinctly rural American holiday custom. Based on a more than century-old tradition started in Anson, Texas, Murphey will bring his Cowboy Christmas Ball to Oklahoma City Friday for the 24th annual edition at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
“The Oklahoma City event ... is really at the heart of what the event is about, because it’s actually a Cowboy Christmas Ball. You can go there and dance — and that’s been the case since the beginning,” said Murphey, who takes his Cowboy Christmas tour around the Southwest. “A lot of our shows now are in performing arts centers, where we show the stuff on the screen but you can’t really dance at the event. That’s why, that one and the original one that I play every year at Anson have been my two favorite events of the whole tour. The people in Oklahoma City really get it. It should always be a dance if you can make it a dance.”
The Cowboy Christmas Ball is based on an 1885 event in which an Anson couple got married during the holidays and invited all the ranching families. Famed East Coast journalist Larry Chittenden was in town and wrote a poem about the event, which was published in the London Times, The New York Times and many other newspapers. The ball became a yearly tradition, and people began coming from thousands of miles away to take part in Anson’s Cowboy Christmas Ball.
A Texas native, Murphey, 73, helped the Oklahoma City museum establish its event, which is an alcohol-free, all-ages festivity including a dinner buffet, a visit from Santa and traditional Western songs and dances.