Christmas and Hanukkah 2022

 It was wonderful to get to share Christmas and Hanukkah this year with Lillian and Jordan. Unfortunately we could only share the holidays "virtually" with Brannon, John, and our Grand Girls - Clemmie, Ruthie, and Suzie. But I am thankful that we can use FaceTime to "make do". Here are a few pictures and even videos of our holiday celebrations together -- physically and spiritually. 

Brannon sent this and the next two pictures of the way Santa  presented the gifts for the GrandGirls. They have practically worn out the light green "Nugget" set of cushions during the last year. These wonderful foam cushions can be made into a couch or chairs, of course, but better yet they can be used as construction elements for "Little Pig" houses, playscapes for climbing, jumping, and sliding, puppet theaters, tents, dog and kitty houses, and more. So Santa brought a whole new set to double the possibilities, this time in a darker shade of green. And he used his fertile imagination to make a Christmas Tree  out of old and new.

Meanwhile Aunt Lil and Jordan sent a complementary group of cushions that make a castle (Jordan's business manufactures these!) Brannon & John may need to build an addition to their abode to house these Christmas gifts.

Here one of Santa's elves poses with the "Nugget Tree"

FaceTime screen shots do not make for prizewinning photography, but perhaps they can give a taste of the joy we shared electronically Christmas morning.

Mama's iPhone and empty boxes are great Christmas morning toys as well.

Clemmie mugs for the iPad in front of her new "castle".

Ruth showed off her new 60s short-skirted Barbie, but hid her face. We were soon able to turn this into a game of "Peep-eye" (or "Peek-a-Boo")

The girls sometimes get right in the iPad's face...

... Suzie has gotten into brushing her teeth and Clem is enjoying a chocolate coin.

Christmas afternoon we decided to take a walk on Jackson hill. We parked at the intersection of Ross and Dogwood Streets and walked up to the old Water Works -- with commentary from yours truly on his adolescent acquaintance with the hill. We walked across the top of the big 1890s water tank where the hilltop American flag flies. We peeped through the windows of the remodeled waterworks event space that in the late sixties held the Rome Art League coffee house where I used to sometimes sing. Then walked around the old empty and topless tank below it. Since the sixties I've thought there should ve a concert space there. I wonder what an acoustical engineer could do to take advantage of the great reverb in that tank and yet keep unwanted noises under control.

Jordan and Lillian experiment with the reverb of the tank with one of my favorite mournful songs, Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More".  I first labeled this a "folk" song momentarily forgetting it was composed by Foster. I first learned it, I think, from a Peter Yarrow album, but Bob Dylan, Jennifer Warnes and many others have recorded it. Foster has been a favorite of mine since childhood. I remember reading a children's biography of Foster in third or fourth grade.

And Lil plays with her echo.

We sang some too, but didn't record it. :-)

Back home it was time to celebrate the eighth day of Hanukkah, which in 2022 coincides with Christmas. 

Jordan sang a Hanukkah blessing. He & Lil also sang another longer Hanukkah song.

...and lit all the candles of the Menorah.

Lil & Jordan were thrilled to raid our LP collection for some classics to take home with them. I see "Famous Blue Raincoat" Jennifer Warnes' cover of Leonard Cohen songs.; "Still Crazy..." Paul Simon, "First Take" by Roberta Flack, "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton, "Sweethearts of the Rodeo" by the Byrds, Sweeney Todd cast album.