Today is cloudy, but it is warm, in the 50’s. It will be cloudy all day. I am staying put today. My cold is back, worse than it had been. I’m going to stay nestled under a warm afghan and hope to feel better. The dogs will love it. Nala sleeps beside me against the the back of the couch while Henry sleeps at the bottom by my feet. They are comfortable. I am not.

I love Christmas carols. It doesn’t matter how often I hear them. I play them all, over and over because their time and season are limited. My mother used to play the albums on her hifi. We had the Bing Crosby album which I think every family in America had. My mother had her Frank Sinatra Christmas. I had Guy Lombardo. We had albums from Firestone and W.T. Grants, each record had a variety of singers and songs and new albums came out very year. I have four of the Firestone collection. I sing along with each of them.

We used to stencil the picture window. We used glass wax on Christmas stencils. It was easy. All you did was dab the glass wax on the stencil and voila, the stencil was transferred to the window. All of the figures were white. I remember Santa the best. He was a bit roly poly, was coming out of a chimney and was waving. We had trees and Santa in his sleigh with the reindeer. We took turns doing a stencil. The window was covered. We thought it was beautiful.

School seemed to last longer and longer the closer we got to Christmas vacation. The nuns had to work harder to keep us busy and quiet so they had us reading stories or coloring, most nativities. I remember a lot of brown and blue. The baby always had yellow hair.

We kept the tree lit, but the window candles didn’t go on until the late afternoon when the day started to darken. No one had white lights in the windows. Ours were orange but there were other windows with red or green lights. We always took a ride to see the lights. There was a lot of oohing and aahing. We went to Saugus to the street where very house was covered in multi-colored lights. The traffic moved slowly, all the better to see everything.

This year I have noticed more lights. I move slowly so as not to miss anything. My head swivels from side to side. I ooh and aah!

First up, I apologize for yesterday. The time got way from me. I woke up late and had to leave shortly thereafter for my concert. By the time I got home, I was tired enough to need a nap.

Today I have another concert, but this time I am up early. The concert is at the Hot Chocolate Sparrow in Orleans. From where we play, everything I can see is chocolate. It is a scene from a dream!

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining in a blue sky without a single cloud. The air is calm. It is in the 40’s, another warm winter’s day.

When I was a kid, we used to get small decorated cardboard boxes with hard Christmas candy inside. The boxes had different scenes. I remember one box with wise men, ladened down with gifts, riding camels. The strap was white. The candy inside always stuck together. I remember I used to bite it apart. My favorites were green, the spearmint, and red, the peppermint. Ribbon candy was also a favorite. It is a pretty candy with stripes of different colors, but it too was usually stuck together in the box. I liked the thin ribbon candy best.

My brother and I used to walk to church together on Christmas morning. My parents always went to midnight mass. We went to the earliest mass we could to get it over with. We hated leaving all our new toys. The earliest mass was around six. We were the only ones walking, and we saw no cars. Some houses had lights. We could see lit Christmas trees through the windows. The mass was quick, no sermon. It was worth the cold, dark walk.

On Christmas morning, my parents were tired. My father would have his coffee and newspaper. My mother would sit on the couch and watch us. I remember showing her what Santa had brought, and she seemed surprised. We never had a formal breakfast. We were too busy to eat, but not too busy to eat some of the chocolate from our stockings.

Every Christmas Day, in the afternoon, we went to East Boston to my grandparent’s house. The house was filled with relatives. My mother was one of eight kids and all but two had kids of their own. My grandparents had gifts for every one of us. They also gave each of us one of those boxes of hard candies.

I have so many memories of Christmas.