This year’s ornament was yet another piece of furniture. We have a dining table, a bookshelf, and now a TV for the screening room and sadly a pretty thick one given the size of today’s flat screens. I had to make room enough on the inside for my recording device and I wanted enough room on the top to perch and item or two to represent the gathering. Each of the TVs had a tiny copy of the book on top, some had a teeny tiny version of the quiz, and as an example, mine had a bowl of potatoes for my mostly potato meal for Everything is Illuminated.
I thought I was going to record one of our favorite quotes from each book but somewhere around the holidays, I went a little crazy and recorded Christmas tunes with lyrics that told part of the story from each book. When you press the red button mine sings to the tune of Over the River and Through the Woods: “Everything is Illuminated as we search for Trachimbrod, Grandfather is blind, but he’s driving behind, a woman with boxes of things quite odd.”