I'm a sucker for vintage Christmas albums, as they remind me of my youth....they remind of when Christmas was awesome and I was a kid and the world was simpler. I mean, Christmas is still awesome cuz now there are new traditions with Callum and Maira...but you know what I mean.

Like, right now, I'm lying on the couch listening to Kenny Rogers Christmas album on vinyl and I'm transported back to my living room at 734 Foundry Street in Easton, when my mom would play her records at Christmas. I used to dance around the coffeetable with my sister. And then go down to the basement to play while my mom made her Christmas cookies--mostly the peanut butter ones with Hershey Kisses in the middle or the chocolate ones with the cute little Andes mint in the middle. I'm lying here at 1030 AM and I have tears in my eyes. What the hell is wrong with me? I dont care. #comeatmebro. Christmas records are great.

Some great ones that remind me of childhood (and they were all on vinyl cuz that's how Hank and Anne rolled....)
-Kenny Rogers
-Barbara Mandrell (mother baking in the kitchen....daddy chopping firewood...)
-Willy Nelson's 'Pretty Paper'  album
-John Denver's "A Rocky Mountain Christmas"
-John Denver and the Muppets
-The Carpenter's Christmas album

It is my mission to find all these records eventually and have my own collection, since Anne's were ruined during a routine basement flooding. The other day Maira and I spent an hour looking at records at TheRecordConnection in Waterville (my favorite store); Bob, the owner, has all his Christmas albums set aside, and Maira sat on the floor and pored through albums, picking the ones we wanted to buy. Maira LOVED this--I think she sees records as a 'novelty' from outer space or something....they are HUGE and have HUGE pictures on them. That is her favorite, as she says. Obviously, she picked the albums based solely on the pictures on the cover. The one she HAD to have, ironically enough, was Brenda Lee's Christmas record.....and this just happens to be Nannie's all time favorite singer.. Nannie's little granddaughter for sure, huh? (and then, on the other hand, Callum loves Manheim Craproller....just like meemee....not sure how I feel about this one....haha)

A couple of pictures from the Thanksgiving eve/day snowstorm.....I dont snowblow.

Diesel navigating the snow in back of BaBa's barn....

tranquility.....

Have I posted this picture on the blog already? At any rate, here it is again...me, Diesel, and the girllllllzzzzz.