The Christmas Issue
Songs, family traditions, and a recipe
Happy Christmas Eve- eve!
Hello, friends. I hope this finds you well. I got home late last night from my last gig of 2024—four wonderful holiday concerts with the Venice Symphony. I sang "Grown-Up Christmas List" and my two songs from Anastasia: "Once Upon a December" (with a full chorus!) and "Journey to the Past". It was a thrill to get to sing with the original movie orchestrations.
In between concerts, I edited an at-home video I made of "There’s Still My Joy”, went through my Photos library on my laptop and found some fun Christmas photos, and wrote what I hope will be an entertaining newsletter.
Welcome to The Christmas Issue of Between Flights!
NOTE: This issue is packed with photos and videos, If this newsletter looks cut off in your inbox, simply click on the “View entire message” link to see the full post. This will allow you to view the entire content right in your email app. Or you can read it in the Substack app.
Traditions… Traditions… Traditions!
Christmas traditions have always been VERY important in my family. We have many, but here are a few I’m particularly fond of:
Christmas Eve
On Christmas eve, Ann and I would always receive matching nightgowns, and our parents would read The Night Before Christmas to us."
On Christmas Eve 2020, Ann and I appeared on Stars in the House, the wonderful web series hosted by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley that raised over $1 million for The Actors Fund during the pandemic. Ann was at home in Tucson, and I was in New York. We wore matching nightgowns, sang songs, and read The Night Before Christmas together. If you’d like to hear us read our cherished book, this video is for you!
A big thank you to David Katz, the tech wizard of Stars in the House, for editing this six-minute clip for me last night! The full episode is over 90 minutes long- if you’d like to watch it, you can find it here.
Christmas Morning:
Christmas morning always began with The Many Moods of Christmas album. Our parents would put on the record, we’d hear “Good Christian Men Rejoice” and that was our cue to come to the living room and see what Santa brought us!
Over the years, we switched from playing the album to playing the CD. Now Nicholas is in charge of it, queuing it up on Spotify before we go to bed! Throughout Christmas morning, it gets played multiple times, especially as soon as family walks through the door. When Ann and I aren’t together for the holiday, we play it over the phone when we call each other on Christmas morning!
For the last 40 years, I’ve made this quiche for our Christmas breakfast. It’s Dan’s friend Beth Jacober’s recipe, and she kindly wrote it out for me. I made this year’s quiche on Wednesday before leaving for Florida and popped it in the freezer. My mom was obsessed with my Christmas Quiche, so I always made an extra one so she could take home leftovers.
What are YOUR favorite Christmas traditions? I’d love to know!
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These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
Every year, while trimming our tree, Dan and I watch Holiday Inn. After all these years, I pretty much have the entire movie memorized. “Oh, LINDA Mason…)
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Whenever we travel, we pick up an ornament as a memento of our trip. We write the place and date on the bottom so we don't forget where we got it. Most of the ornaments on our tree hold deep sentimental value, but there's one that is especially meaningful to me—Purple Dog.
This is what’s left of the purple dog ornament I made when I was growing up. I knitted the body with yarn and used a toilet paper roll as the base. It had eyes made of cotton balls and purple velvet ears, cut from leftover fabric of a gown my mom had made when she sang with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus. It was, to put it kindly, very “homemade” looking. My mom, who liked having a beautiful Christmas tree, requested that Purple Dog reside on the back side of the tree.
When Nicholas was old enough to help trim the tree, I told him the story of Purple Dog, and he INSISTED it be front and center. Last week, I told him we put up the tree, and he said, “You put up Purple Dog, right?” You bet I did!
Ann always gives me wonderful Christmas presents, but nothing will ever top what she gave me in 1981—the vocal score to Company. A month earlier, I had made my Broadway debut in Merrily We Roll Along.
When I read her inscription now, I’m so moved. How did she know?
It can’t begin to compare to what Ann gave me that year, but I was proud of the present I gave her last year. When we were little, we pored over the Sears Christmas Wish Book catalog, making lists of what we wanted Santa to bring us. I found a PDF of the 1970 catalog on eBay and surprised her. It brought back great memories.
This Christmas
Tomorrow night, Dan, Nicholas, and I are going to see Chris Botti at The Blue Note—this has become a new Christmas Eve tradition for us. After the concert, we’ll go home, open our new PJs, read The Night Before Christmas, and leave out milk and cookies for Santa. (And knowing us, finish wrapping presents!)
Christmas will be small but cozy this year—just Dan, Nicholas, me, and Oliver. After opening stockings from Santa and unwrapping presents, we’re planning a lazy day watching the Knicks, football, and reading by the fire. For dinner, I’m making Ina Garten’s Weeknight Bolognese.
P.S. Speaking of “This Christmas,” Nicholas started a new tradition of watching hilarious YouTube videos of holiday musical mishaps, including this one with Patti LaBelle. She’s so fabulous—I love how she handled this!
Where in the World Is Liz?
I’m home until January 10, and then I’m off to do Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway Cruise to the Caribbean.
CLICK HERE for my full schedule, including my March London shows. More dates will be announced soon including concerts in Boston and North Carolina.
When You’ve Got Friends Like Mine
Thank you to everyone who downloaded or streamed my new holiday single, "There’s Still My Joy" by Melissa Manchester, Beth Nielson Chapman and Matt Rollings.
When I recorded the song, I knew I wanted to create a music video for it. I reached out to Lissa Forehan, who created the graphics for The Kammy video and made my sister Ann’s music video for her last single, "I Believe in America." (Lissa started a career as a college professor and launched a second career late in life, becoming an award-winning film producer, and is now producing music videos as well.) I sent Lissa the song and the lyrics, and she came up with beautiful images to animate. Then I reached out to Jessica Fishenfeld to add the lyrics—Jessica designed the lyrics for The Kammy as well as other videos for Ann, and is also a talented actor/singer/comedian. During the pandemic, I taught myself how to make simple lyric videos with still images for a few of my recordings (Moon River and Here, There, and Everywhere, but this is the first time I’ve had a lyric video with movement. I loved collaborating with Lissa and Jess on this and am so grateful for their artistry, and generosity of spirit on creating this video.
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A Song From My Home
After working on getting my recording of "There’s Still My Joy" out in the world and creating the lyric video with Lissa and Jess, I felt a strong urge to sing it live! Since I didn’t have gigs coming up where I could, I thought, “I’ll just sing it at home.” Using Peter’s guitar track from our recording, I filmed several takes of the song—not because I necessarily needed to but because I didn’t want to stop singing it. This is a tough time of year for a lot of people, and I hope this song brings a little comfort to those who are struggling.
That’s it for this issue of Between Flights. I need to start wrapping presents. Thank you for reading and listening- I’m so glad to share this time of year with you.
Wishing you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a joyful holiday season.
xoxo Liz
P.S. If you’re looking for some music to add to your playlists, I’ve put together a Spotify playlist of 23 of my holiday recordings. Click here to listen
PPS If you know anyone who might enjoy this newsletter, please share!
The best substack to read on Christmas Eve morning. Loved revisiting the Stars in the House. Happy memories of a strange time. Loved your stories and purple dog and the recipe and the videos. Thanks so much for sharing. See you in March. Yippee. Happy Christmas to you,Dan,Nicholas and Oliver. ❤️❤️🎅🎅❤️🎅
Oh, Liz, what a great entry this one is. Thank you! And all the best to you and yours for all the holidays.