Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays,

May your day be peaceful, no matter how you celebrate it.

My doggie Max actually was quite sick yesterday — he had a few seizures, the first one took over a minute. He’s twelve years old, and for a big boy that means getting up there. Nothing like this ever happened before. He had a fairly good night and is doing well so far, knock on wood, but tomorrow we’ll have to go to the vet. Please send him good energy.

This sort of put a damper on my holiday cheer, and I’m not in the mood to wax poetic here. But I want to leave you with something enjoyable. The Christmas Season during my childhood in Germany, before mass-produced toys were available and when the candles on the Christmas Tree were real, when Advent Calendars were simple little pictures decorated with a bit of glitter and it took an eternity to get to the opening of the next little window — well, forgive me, but “Jingle Bells” and Santa Claus couldn’t quite match up…

However, there are two immensely delightful stories that I only got to know once I lived in the U.S. The first is A Child’s Christmas in Wales by the Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas. We would read it together when my daughter was ten or so, before YouTube days. The book is one of the relatively few which moved with me from New Mexico to Massachusetts. To hear it in Dylan Thomas’s own voice is a special treat, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. I can listen to this story again and again.

The other one is longer, but immensely touching and moving: Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, read by the author himself. This one, too, one can listen to again and again. Enjoy.