Nick Lowe "Christmas At The Airport"

When I was a kid, here's what we did on Christmas Eve and Day.

On December 24th at about 2pm, we loaded into the station wagon and drove 2 hours toward western Massachusetts, to get a 4pm "Christmas Pageant" Mass, hosted by Father Brian Flatley, a friend of my Dad's.

By 5:30, we were in Stow at Uncle Joe and Auntie Peg's house for an extravaganza with my Mom's extended family.

Back in the car by 10pm.

Nearing midnight, we had reached home in Newburyport, but I went right back out the door to my friend Brian's house, where their Christmas Eve party was just winding down.

Home by 2am.  Back up now later than 7am.

After presents and breakfast, we were in the wagon once again, this time to Burlington, MA, for a check in with my sister's Godparents.

Then on down the road to Natick, for a meal at my Dad's brother's house.

By nightfall, we were making an end-of-the-run stop at my mother's Aunt Clem's, where we had circled back to seeing a few of the relatives from Joe and Peg's.  And for a number of years, my Great Grandmother was in a nursing home across the street, so we popped in there too.

Then the long quiet ride home.

You can think about Santa and snow and pie and holly and pine needles and mistletoe and even office parties, when you think about Christmas.

But what the bulk of the holiday really involved, was traveling.  And I know this is true for many of you, who spend hours, if not days, in transit just so you can enjoy a little Holiday time with family.

Nick Lowe faces that reality of the holidays on his new Christmas record, with this typically jocular ditty about "Christmas At The Airport."


Hear the song on Youtube.

Robert Clary "Alouette"

I've mentioned before that I was a strangely adult-like small child.

In the past I've attributed it to things like being the oldest child in my family or the youngest child in the neighborhood, or being a very verbal child, or having parents that modeled an older-school behavior.

One thing that definitely played a role was TV, but I don't know if this is a cause or an effect.

Today, if my kids want to watch TV, there are endless choices.  Endless age-appropriate choices.  We have 4 PBS stations.  Plus DVDs.  Plus the internet and Netflix.  Our kids can watch kid shows.

When I was a kid, the choices were not so abundant.  And if there wasn't a kids show on TV, you watched something that wasn't a kids show.

Actually, most of my peers just went outside or to their rooms, and played.

But I loved TV of all kinds.

And thought I might have only been 7 or 8 or 9 years old, I spent hours and hours watching shows that were neither geared for my age-group, or even my decade.

The UHF channels in the afternoon would air series from the 60s that an elementary school kid in the 80s should have had no business watching.  But I loved shows like McHale's Navy and That Girl and Adam-12 and such.

I'm guessing a lot of the jokes and context and even plot sailed right over my head.  But I know I absorbed quite a bit, too.

Because when my 2nd grade teacher asked if anyone knew the song "Alouette," I said yes.

Here's why I know I was a "strangely adult-like child."

When my teacher seemed surprised that I knew the song and could sing it, she asked---pressed even---where I had heard it.

And I distinctly remember thinking that she had to think it was inappropriate and strange that suddenly the class discussion was about to be taken over by an 8 year old who was going to explain the plot-line of an episode of "Hogan's Heroes."  But explain I did, about how Lebeau (Robert Clary) was singing the song as part of a ruse to distract some Nazis during a prison camp talent show.

My teacher seemed unfazed (and now that I have a child in elementary school, I realize that teacher hear all kinds of embarrassing/inappropriate stuff from kids about things their parents do or say) by how the discussion had turned, and she went about teaching the class the song.

But I was keenly aware that most of my peers had no idea what I was talking about, and that once again, I was an 8-year old talking like---and to---an adult, not a kid.


Hear the song on Youtube.