No Holiday parties, no guests, no Patrick or Katie visiting us. This season, with the coronavirus raging, requires hunkering down. Diane has loaded up on food and other essentials so we don’t need to leave our house for awhile. So, it’s baking and cooking and listening to music. Here are a couple of mellow CDs perfect for these crazy times. How will you be spending the Holidays?
Tracklist
| 1 | –The Temptations | Silent Night | 6:02 |
| 2 | –The Whispers | Happy Holidays To You | 4:34 |
| 3 | –The Whispers | The Christmas Song | 3:48 |
| 4 | –Luther Vandross | At Christmas Time | 5:01 |
| 5 | –The Temprees | It’s Christmas Time Again (The Christmas Song) | 4:11 |
| 6 | –Donny Hathaway | This Christmas | 3:31 |
| 7 | –Nat King Cole | The Christmas Song | 3:11 |
| 8 | –Charles Brown | Please Come Home For Christmas | 2:38 |
| 9 | –The Emotions | What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas? | 3:22 |
| 10 | –The Stylistics | When You’ve Got Love, It’s Christmas All Year Long | 4:28 |
| 11 | –Margie Joseph | Christmas Gift | 3:27 |
| 12 | –The O’Jays | Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas | 4:57 |
Tracklist
| 1 | –Alexander O’Neal | My Christmas Gifts | 3:15 |
| 2 | –The Whispers | A Very Special Holiday | 3:48 |
| 3 | –The Whispers | This Christmas | 4:18 |
| 4 | –Al Jarreau | The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire) | 4:12 |
| 5 | –Charles Brown | Merry Christmas, Baby | 2:53 |
| 6 | –Al Green | I’ll Be Home For Christmas | 3:15 |
| 7 | –The Ebonys | (Christmas Ain’t Christmas, New Year’s Ain’t New Year’s) Without The One You Love | 2:09 |
| 8 | –Rotary Connection | Christmas Love | 3:10 |
| 9 | –Brook Benton | Soul Santa | 3:22 |
| 10 | –Darryl Tookes | Merry Christmas | 3:14 |
| 11 | –The O’Jays | I Can Hardly Wait ‘Til Christmas | 4:40 |
| 12 | –Lou Rawls | Auld Lang Syne | 1:34 |
How will I be spending Christmas? Certainly not listening to these cd’s I hope. Sounds like torture. Instead of a large family gathering which usually is about 20 people my oldest daughter is having me over for dinner with just her immediate family. Which means 4 plus me.
Steve, have a Merry Christmas!
Staying at home. Alice will be attending a family house party, I assume she’ll keep a mask on, that is also a bit of celebration of her 50th birthday (on tthe 22nd).
There is no lack of talented performers in this set, and probably some pretty good versions of the cover songs I haven’t heard. I have strong opinions in most art, but I hope as I age and before complete befuddlement sets in, that I come off as less intolerant than some of the regular bunch here!
Happy Birthday to Alice, Todd!
Thanks, Jerry! Will convey.
Todd, I can relate to “before complete befuddlement sets in.” Hope you and Alice enjoy a Merry Christmas!
May we all white knuckle it past the white plaque and such, George! A happy season to you and yours (given everything)…an atheist and a Daoist won’t get too choked up over the holiday per se, but there are all kinds of ways to happify for solstice!
I’ll be cooking up a couple of batches of chili for Christmas Eve over at my daughter’s house. Christmas Day itself will be spent relaxing at home — just as we have done since the pandemic began. We may listen to some Christmas music but will more likely watch old TV crime series and movies.
Have a fantastic Christmas, George and Diane!
Jerry, heavy snow is in our forecast for Christmas. I’ve fired up Big Orange so I’m ready to snowplow my driveway and sidewalks. Diane wants to watch WONDER WOMAN 1984 on Christmas. Plus we will Facebook PORTAL with Patrick and Katie. Merry Christmas to you and your family!
There is some likelihood of us eating some chili and watching the WW film on Saturday if not Friday…a happy time of it for you and yours, too, Jerry!
We have plenty o’food in the house – yesterday we scored TWO Junior’s cheesecakes (one plain, one chocolate swirl) on sale at the supermarket for $9.99 each – but will be emulating A CHRISTMAS STORY in a traditional New York Jewish way with Chinese food tomorrow.
Otherwise, we’ll be watching Christmas episodes of favorite British shows – we watched Gavin & Stacey last night, but also have The Good Life, One Foot in the Grave, The Darling Buds of May, Jonathan Creek, and Waiting for God lines up – as well as MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS and LOVE ACTUALLY.
Thanks for the reminder…we’ve been trying to make a point of supporting our favorite Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants on a weekly basis, at least…though the latter might be even more likely to be staffed by observant Xians and not choose to work…Happy video marathon, Jeff!
It will just be me, John, and our three girls this year; and we’ll be having our usual: lamb, studded with garlic, over a bed of fresh mint and rosemary, slow-roasted on the Big Green Egg, after being marinated in Greek-yogurt-sliced-onions-sliced-lemons-and-spices overnight. (There will be some seafood for Lilly, who doesn’t eat red meat.) The lamb is John’s province. I make the side dishes: mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, Yorkshire pudding, and gravy. I’m making another fruit crumble today (my last one was very popular and so easy to make) which will be served with French vanilla ice cream for dessert tomorrow. We didn’t put up a tree this year because John’s covid-times home office takes up the half of the dining room where the tree usually goes. The den is decorated (and I got a small ceramic tree, so we’re not entirely treeless) and all the gifts are set out in there. We’ll probably pop in DVDs of our Christmas favorites, “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” and “Bernard and the Genie,” and we’ll put on TBS (or TNT) when they start the 24-hours of “A Christmas Story” this evening. Music? Well, we have to listen to Elvis’s Christmas Album, but then I guess one of the girls will open Christmas music on Spotify and we’ll let the algorithm decide what we hear. Merry Christmas, everybody!
Deb, Christmas at your home sounds like fun, fun, fun! Diane is going with a turkey for Christmas. Her friend, Cindy, dropped by with a chocolate cream pie. Diane’s personal baker, Laurie, brought us dozens of her superlative Christmas cookies. Way too much dessert! We’ll be watching WONDER WOMAN 1984 and later Christmas night I’ll be snowblowing the 9 inches of snow that’s been forecast. Merry Christmas to you and your family!
We listened to the Phil Spector Christmas CD.
And undoubtedly I will be singing “Deck the halls with boughs of hor-ry” with dinner tomorrow. But no duck with or without the head.
Yours sounds great. I love lamb and Yorkshire pudding.
Jeff, Deb always knows how to put on a Christmas extravaganza!
And…finally checking in. Just had some eggs and toast and second cup of coffee.
Our Christmas will be as usual for us: just the two of us, no comings or goings of any sort. No visitors. Covid, you know. We’ll be relaxing, reading, may watching a Christmas movie, or not, depends on what we find. TCM might be promising. Sometime this afternoon Barbara will make lasagna, a favorite we haven’t had for a while, and we’ll eat it, our Christmas dinner, tonight instead of tomorrow, leaving tomorrow for leftovers and laziness. We also have cheesecake and apple pie for dessert.
We didn’t get a tree (the kitten) or decorate this year, so there’s not much to look Christmasy, but WE know Santa will come.
We also didn’t do much gift-wise, one thing each, which is plenty, plus the new microwave and car battery, so otherwise we’ll stay home and content on this cold sunny day and tomorrow.
MERRY HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!
Rick, Diane would prepare lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner at the request of Katie and Patrick. But, of course, they can’t be with us this Christmas so Diane’s cooking a pot roast with mashed potatoes, peas, and jello salad. I’m going to pass on the mashed potatoes and go with rice instead. We have chocolate cream pie for dessert and plenty of Christmas cookies complements of our friends. And, about a foot of snow is on its way making for a White Christmas! Merry Christas to you and Barbara!
HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!
Here in Hungary lockdown is not too brutal, just limits on the number of people meeting essentially so we’ll have my wife’s son and family (wife and daughter) over here tomorrow for a duck we got from a farm in East Hungary.
And the little one will be staying with us again for a week or two – so her parents can work …
But my sister just called me from England, very sad. She lives near the London airport Gatwick and had hoped to travel with her husband to london to visite their children and grandchildren but no way – London is in total lockdown now.
PS:
We were really lucky. Had been thinking for some time to sell our house near the Balaton (around 250 km from Budapest) and buy something nearer, so the young ones could visit us more often – and we just managed this in February!
So we stayed at home in our “new” house, had a lot of time to work in the garden …
Wolf, no gardening here as the Lake Effect snow is about to bury us on Christmas! Happy Holidays!
Xmas morning with Kristine’s family at her place, Xmas afternoon with Stephanie and her kids here! I’ll be glad when it’s all over and I can go to the hospital!
Bob, you have no idea what you’re missing with a slow jam! Happy Hollidays and good luck with your procedure!
Oh, and I agree with Steve about those albums!