I grew up in New York City. I joined my parish choir in the 4th grade and in high school sang in three services on Sunday: Sunday School’s at 9:30 AM, at 11:00 AM for parents and parishioners, and Vespers at 8 PM. When I moved to Rome after my college graduation, what I missed most besides my family and friends, was the inky smell and world-wide coverage of The New York Times, the St. Patrick’s Day parade, Entenmann’s donuts and my choir, particularly at Christmastime.

In Rome at the time there were no Christmas services devoted exclusively to Christmas songs and no neighborhood door-to-door sing-alongs. It took me only one holiday season to realize that in Italy there was no national repertoire of popular Christmas music. Actually, that’s not quite right there was (and still is) one and only one Christmas melody sung throughout the boot.