Start the week #87

Special Christmas/Chanukah/Winterval/Season* Edition

*Please delete as appropriate.

Greetings!

This year, the Jewish festival of Chanukah falls on the same day as Christmas. I wonder if that is auspicious. Jewish festivals are arranged according to the lunar calendar, which is why festivals like Chanukah and Christmas, or Passover and Easter, don’t usually exactly coincide.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

Christmas hazards

Knowing which kind of card to send to whom is a minefield. Some of the people in our circle celebrate Christmas, some celebrate Chanukah, and others celebrate neither. After much discussion lasting several seconds, we decided in the end to send a Jacquie Lawson ecard, chosen for its blank message and non-partisan imagery. We made it a “happy and prosperous 2025” card, which hopefully will satisfy everyone.

There is also a hazard in delivering cards through the letterboxes of our neighbours, which I did earlier today. I’m always worried that they will catch a glimpse of me at the door and invite me in. I like most our neighbours, but I’m too concerned with matters of consequence¹ to wish to have a drink and a mince pie with them.

Christmas songs

I really don’t like going into shops at this time of year, because of the awful cheesy so-called Christmas music blaring out. Not Christmas carols — they’re quite tuneful — but the songs that appear in the pop charts every year.

Earlier today I had a go at playing a few Christmas carols on a digital saxophone². I set it up to sound like a flute³, and then fumbled my way around. I hadn’t played these tunes before, and I was playing by ear, trying to work out the intervals between notes as I went along. Hence the mistakes, the plodding rendition and (in places) the hesitation. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy them a bit at least. Here goes:

God rest ye merry gentlemen

Jingle bells

Good King Wenceleslas

We wish you a merry Christmas (sort of)

I hope they haven’t put you off music for life. They are going to form part of my antibusking programme, which is where I go out busking and people pay me to stop.

The saxophone tutor put on a few extra sessions over Zoom, and he said something really nice to me. He said what he admires about me is that when I make mistakes (many!) I work and work at it until I’ve corrected them. That’s very true. I haven’t done that yet with those snippets above because I thought you might find my groping my way vaguely interesting, perhaps even encouraging. If not, just forget you heard them. In order to help you do that, here is a nice jazzy version of Have Yourself a Merry Christmas:

Finally…

Thanks so much for reading my stuff, and subscribing, if you do⁴. And of course a big thanks to my paying subscribers.

I hope y’all have a nice Christmas/Chanukah/Winterval/Season, and a wonderful 2025. Here is the official Freedman Towers card for this year:

Left to right: Lady Elaine, Lord Terry, Willow, Minty, Mocha

1. This is an expression that comes up frequently in The Little Prince. I am using it in a tongue-in-cheek way, in case you didn’t realise.

2. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t use the real saxophone because it takes me longer to assemble, take it apart and clean it than does the digital saxophone, and I had only a few minutes available.

3. The so-called saxophone voices sound like nothing at all, least of all a saxophone. The only voice which sounds reasonably accurate is the flute voice, so it’s a good job I actually like it.

4. And if not, why not?