Mommy always read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to me, and I knew all about reindeer. I always wanted to see real live reindeer. They're so big and so graceful with their beautiful long hair and big horns all twisted around each other. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen were my favorites. I hung Mommy's red ice-skating socks that were all fuzzy over the fireplace mantle. We played "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on the victrola and on the piano.

Barbara and Joann didn't celebrate Christmas. They had Chanukah, instead, and it is called the Festival of Lights. The first candle is lit at the top of the lights that go up, like steps, eight of them to the top one. The ninth, in the middle of them, was the one you had to light the other ones with. That is the way the Jewish people have Christmas. Mommy liked Christmas because Granddaddy always gave her presents then.

Easter meant new spring outfits to them, and they made Easter baskets. The Easter I went to stay with them for a couple of days, I felt very grown-up. I packed my little suitcase Mommy gave me, and I kissed her and Grandmommy and Granddaddy and Aunt Lorraine good-bye and left.

I left Mommy only three times in my life. Once when I went with my little suitcase to visit Aunt Dorothy, once when Mommy went to New York for two days and I stayed with Grandmommy, and once when I stayed one night with my friend Sandra. We were always together, Mommy and I.

My uncle drove us in the car to 9 Normandy Drive where they lived. This was in Silver Spring, just outside the city. My cousins had a playroom with lots of toys and a big dollhouse that had electricity in it.

They had a wonderful dog named Skippy. She was a black and white cocker spaniel. Her grandsire was "My Own Brucie." Skippy was a "connoisseur," Joann said. She was very particular about her food. She couldn't be bothered with bones. You had to hold the bone for her so she'd eat the meat off of it. She would lay down and rest on her back with her paws up in the air.

Her name was really Skippelina Ruth. Her real birthday was January 14, but my cousins made a mistake and had her birthday parties on February 2.

Aunt Dorothy boiled all the eggs for our Easter party. I cut out lots and lots of little pictures out of an Easter egg paper cut-out book, and I pasted a dozen pictures on one egg.

We had chocolate bunnies and yellow sugar baby chickens. How happy I was with my first Easter basket!

I wouldn't let anybody eat any of the chocolate bunnies or little chickens. They were too pretty. They all got stale, but I didn't care.

Aunt Dorothy tried to turn my light off at night, but I wouldn't let her. I always had a little light on at night. Mommy let me. She never let me be afraid.

We went to lots of movies, and some of them were scary. But I was never afraid of the most horrible mystery stories. I liked comedies and mysteries best.

Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers were funny, and all the Walt Disney movies were wonderful. I liked Cinderella best. Willie, the whale who sang at the Met, was amazing. We saw his vocal chords when he sang. They vibrated. It was really Nelson Eddy who was singing though!

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