Santa rides on a fire engine

When I first moved into my neighborhood I was startled to hear fire trucks and police sirens in my neighborhood. #(*&*(^*&)% I said, there must be a fire! Hurrying to put on my shoes I looked out the window. There was a red fire truck with Santa Claus waving from the engine. This being a new facet of the holidays I had never seen, I was still relived to be able to go back to my Masterpiece Theatre and put my pajamas back on.

Recently at a department Christmas lunch the conversation (these things can get dull) turned to the topic of when children discover the truth about Santa. The thought occurred to me of how to explain to a Santa believer the presence of Santa on a fire truck. The best story I could think of is that he does this to spy on the little children to make sure they are being nice and not naughty. This has the double advantage of keeping the Santa story alive (you can always blame him when the kids don't get what they wanted under the tree) and to keep the kids from getting too bratty in the month of  December.

I am getting jaded in my old age. Last night I heard all the commotion outside and ignored the whole thing. We have now all been trained to ignore the sound of fire alarms during the days preceding Christmas. Hope there never is a real fire during this time of year.

Editor's note: Here is cute video you might enjoy. It contains frank language. Happy Kringles!

The record that ruined Christmas

Before this record came out we sincerely believed in Santa, God, country, Perry Como and Pat Boone. Then this record came out and we all became cynical. Christmas greetings became ironic. Ironic as in 30 Rock, SNL, The New Girl, etc. We went from sincere people who really cared about the holiday to cynics who could only say Merry Christmas with irony.  This record ruined Christmas for a generation. 

Slate's Christmas Favorites

Slate published a list of the great Christmas records today. Not bad.

• “White Christmas,” Bing Crosby from White Christmas (1995)
• “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Judy Garland from Meet Me in St. Louis (1995)
• “The Christmas Song,” Nat King Cole from The Christmas Song (2009)
• “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” Michael Bublé from Christmas (2011)
• "Baby It's Cold Outside,” Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting from Johnny Mercer: Collector’s Series (1989)
• “Up On the Housetop,” The Jackson 5 from Ultimate Christmas Collection (2009)
• “Winter Wonderland,”* Peggy Lee from Ultra-Lounge: Christmas Cocktails, Part One (1996)
• “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” The Ronettes from A Christmas Gift to You from Phil Spector (2009)
• “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” Lou Rawls from Merry Christmas, Baby (2006)
• “Merry Christmas, Baby,” Otis Redding from Merry Christmas Baby / White Christmas (1968)
• “Blue Christmas,” Elvis Presley from Elvis’ Christmas Album (1985)
• “Santa Baby,” Eartha Kitt from The Very Best of Eartha Kitt (2007)
• “Sleigh Ride,” Ella Fitzgerald from Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (2002)
• “This Christmas,” Donny Hathaway from A Donny Hathaway Collection (1990)
•  “All I Want for Christmas is You,” Mariah Carey from Merry Christmas (1994)
• “The Christmas Waltz,” Frank Sinatra from  A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra (2011)
• “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” Brenda Lee from Rockin’ Little Christmas (2011)
• “Silent Night,”* the Temptations from A Motown Christmas (1999)
•  “Happy Xmas (War is Over),” John Lennon from Now That’s What I Call Christmas! (2001)
•  “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” Frank Sinatra from Christmas Songs by Sinatra(2007)

Of course I would make a few changes. I'd substitute the Chrismas Waltz by Peggy Lee Frank Sinatra's version. I'd also include some of my personal classics like "Got a code inda node for Christmas" by Gayla Peevey,  and "Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer" by Elmo and Patsy. Of course,  no Christmas would be complete without "Italian Jingle Bells" by Lou Monte. I also like Christmas Time in Harlem by Louis Armstrong.  I guess this year I'm doing the lazy way of making a Christmas cd. 

Dear Aunty Florence

Delco woman sentenced for food-stamp fraud

November 30, 2012|By Aubrey Whelan, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

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A Darby woman who pled guilty to allowing patrons at her food market to exchange food stamps for cash was sentenced today in federal court in Philadelphia to 21 months in prison and ordered to pay $225,000 in restitution.

Federal officials said Florence Kingsley, 59, the former owner of Aunty Florence's West African Food Market, would give food-stamp recipients cash in exchange for the stamps and then falsify register transactions.

In one instance, officials said, Kingsley purchased $200.23 in Food Stamp benefits and gave the Food Stamp recipient $120 in cash, keeping the remaining monetary value for herself.

Not Dear Aunty Florence? 

the Fiscal Cliff

Charles Krautheimer has a new column on the fiscal cliff. Maybe he's right that it's all politics. Things usually are. Obama has some nice cards right now. The Bush tax cuts are going to expire on January 1 automatically. Obama won the election and the Dems have a few more Congressional seats stating in 2013. He has the big MO. So what's the hurry?

Nobody knows how things will turn out. Still it will make for some nice holiday dinner conversation.

45 rpm records

I always like to brag that I have music in all formats. I have a few seventy eights, lots of singles, albums, cassettes and cd's. One thing I  forgot is how I got all those singles. The truth is that most of them  were not bought at the standard price when the records were on the charts. Most of them were bought when they were put in plastic bags. These records have little holes punched in them at the corner of the labels.

One summer day I was at the Modell's record department and I noticed something new. Plastic bags containing  singles were on sale for three for a dollar or thirty nine cents. The records varied and contained  different artists with hits and almost hits of the past year or so. You might find "I got you babe" or "Sweet talking guy" or a Solomon Burke single. Or Mary Welles, Petula Clark and the Kinks. The artists were very varied, but except for the one time I found "Ain't she sweet" they contained no Beatles, Stones, or Dylan. You never found a Capitol recording but otherwise I remember seeing all the labels. I even discovered three Jimi Hendrix records together.

The other day I spent an hour or so playing old singles. They still sounded good but getting up every three minutes to change the record is hard on the back. A lazy man's way of listening to old records is searching for the titles through You Tube. It's amazing how many records from that era are available there.

the day after Thanksgiving

One of the weirder American holidays is the day after Thanksgiving, also known as "Black Friday". It is a day when  all school children get off but many adults have to work. I remember when I worked in Denver on that day. It was the day we got to see all the husbands of the key punch operators in the office. Mom would have to work, Daddy would be off, the kids would be off and the pay checks were given out at noon. One by on at twelve o'clock the husbands would all troop in with the kids to pick up the checks. It was fun matching up the families to the staffers. 

I wrote a newsletter column back then for the house organ of the company. I wrote how great it was to see every body's family on the day after Thanksgiving. That article must have caught the attention of somebody because the next year the company made that day a vacation day. I always felt is was my column that was responsible. 

Probably for me my happiest memory of this day is being home from college and seeing all my college buddies on that day. I remember taking the bus to New York with old friends on that day. I think we ate Chinese food. 

Nowadays the day after Thanksgiving has become the major shopping day of the year, "Black Friday". I guess getting up at three a.m to go to the stores is a ritual by itself. This year, however, the stores are opening on Thanksgiving night. More convenient but probably not as exciting. 

Thanksgiving being a Thursday can be traced to Washington. I often wonder why it isn't a Friday. Wouldn't it make more sense than creating an orphan day and a day care nightmare for millions of working parents? I guess in the good olde days Mother was home on that day, catching up on the canning.