Very hard to believe it's been 5 years since our last healthy Xmas together, as by his last he was bedridden, and I couldn't bring myself to celebrate much at all. I regret that, and would have had everyone making as much merry as possible, but it just wasn't at the time. No gifts at all 4 years ago.
I did play Ken's favorite Xmas record, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas', by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, a big (swing) band. A big hit back in the forties, our folks played it every Xmas, and we were enthralled and entertained by it. Two tracks in particular were unique: their version of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, with hilarious sound effects, and the title track. It's is a very powerful and poignant rendering of Clement Clark Moore's poem, and always left us aching for Xmas to stay just an hour longer. I remember Ken 5 years ago saying how intensely sentimental he got every time he heard it, and I played it for him one more time 4 years ago as he sat unable to speak in front of the fireplace.
We lost the original LP, but Ken found cassettes for both of us in the '80s. He kept hunting for the LP version and finally hunted it down in the Village a few years later for $30, worth it just for Norman Rockwell's portrait of Santa and his elves sneaking around two siblings deep asleep in a big chair.
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