‘The Sugarplum Fairy Talks Turkey’ (1989)

THE SUGARPLUM FAIRY TALKS TURKEY
By Richard Dyer, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe, page 24, November 26th, 1989
“All Christmas observances in our family are fairly traditional,” says Boston Pops conductor, John Williams, “with gifts and lots of slimming things to eat. It’s a family time. For the last 10 years, I’ve spent the week just before Christmas in Boston conducting the Pops. I enjoy that, because Christmas in Boston looks like Christmas ought to look. For someone from California this is a wonderful thing. Two years ago, the family came to Boston to join me, and then we went out to spend Christmas in Stockbridge.
“My wife Samatha does all the cooking, and my favorite part is the stuffing she does — when I ask her what’s in it, she says ‘Everything.’ Sometimes I’ll play a few carols at the piano. For years a group of us would sing the new carols my friend and colleague Alfred Burt composed every Christmas; I’m very devoted to them, and now I always try to put some of them on the Pops Christmas program. . . . All the lights and festivity and shopping brightens everything — life in the winter months would be unthinkable without Christmas, wouldn’t it?”