Not in Control:

It turns out that the 17,000 Christmas lights that Alek Komarnitsky supposedly placed under the control of Internet visitors was a hoax. The many thousands who went to his site thought they were turning the lights on and off, but they weren't. Our wealth and technology and military power and physical comforts provide us with a similar illusion of being in control. But when the earth casually shrugs off 100 thousand-odd souls, it sends a great wave of wake-up around the world. We know in our bones it could have been California as easily as Sri Lanka. The North Country too can shiver with deadly force, or be torn by savage winds, or buried in relentlessly thickening ice. We are spared--this time--through no virtue of our own, as the victims were swept away by no sin of theirs. Natural catastrophe may have no moral content, but our response to it certainly does. Please return a wave of generosity to the afflicted in Asia and Africa.

Christmas on the Road:

You would think I would remember the presents, since so much effort and expense and wishing went into them, but the first things that come to my mind, remembering Christmas, are daring expeditions to my grandparents in a succession of sketchy family cars. The snow belt was a much more formidable barrier in the pre-superhighway days. We regularly put on chains to make the dicey ascent south through Ithaca. My father had a fondness for experimental vehicles, which included Corvairs of the unsafe-at-any-speed vintage, Ramblers, and one Borgward--a German Ford too small to fit American wheel-ruts, whose burnt-out bearings stranded us at Watertown's Hotel Woodruff. I found the go-go dancers in the hotel bar a revelation to my sharp Boy Scout-trained eyes. Whatever the conveyance, my siblings and I, mushed together across the back seat, got along like scalded cats and rabid dogs for the 7 to 15 hours it took to limp into Towanda PA. My parents mu st have been selectively deaf, possessed of sociopathic numbness or supernatural self-restraint. Undeservedly, we arrived each year unslaughtered.

A Singing Season:

Have you listened to Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer way too many times? Do you shop online to avoid hearing A Yodeler's Christmas on endless replay at Monster Mall? Do you stay at home til New Year to avoid the cognitive dissonance of experiencing The Carol of the Bells in one ear and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree in the other? Before you say Bah, Humbug! to the whole mess, check out holiday music made the old-fashioned way, by people getting together in the same room, or walking together down snowy streets, and singing. I am fortunate in my hometown: music in Potsdam acquires both depth and polish from the presence of the Crane School of Music, but that is just the sprinkles on the cone. All over the North Country, and every country, people gather to "roll their own" music this time of year--in places of worship, in auditoriums and living rooms, in nursing homes and on street corners. Sometimes the best Christmas present is just--being present. Breathe in, sing out.

It's the Music:

Unlike America's metropolises where the excellent bathe in the warm fountains of promotion, the North Country is full of half-hidden excellence. One of our secret treasures is the mild-mannered Potsdam composer Art Frackenpohl. While his many compositions and arrangements are treasured by prominent and discerning performers, and thousands of students have treasured the benefit of his teaching and counsel over the years, I have known Art since my childhood, and treasure him for a humbler role, church organist and music maven emeritus of Potsdam First Presbyterian Church. His music has graced the baptisms of a small village worth of infants and celebrated a regiment of newlyweds. And so many funerals--Art's infectious and upbeat piano arrangement of What a Friend We Have in Jesus sent me home from my father's funeral smiling and fifty pounds lighter. The church's Westminster Choir gets to crash-test Art's vocal arrangements, the instruments of the handbell choir are a gift of Art and his wife Mary Ellen, and Art conducts from the piano when the ad hoc congregational "Philhymnonic Orchestra" kicks out the jams a couple Sundays a year. Thanks, Art, for the many unintended lessons.

New Eyes:

I'm not much of a globetrotter--I don't even hold a passport. But like Thoreau, "I have travelled widely--in Concord." Armchair travel, though, can be almost as good, especially when given the fresh eyes of an 18-year-old through which to see. Welcome Becky McClusky of Potsdam, who is travelling this semester in northern India. She shares her trip with us in a new Letters Home feature. Make and eat momos, watch monks engage in dharma combat, and categorize the many aromas of Delhi, old and new. I don't think we're in Potsdam anymore, Toto.