Writer Chick With A Ukulele: The Great 2013 "Ukulele" Christmas Adventure!

About a month ago, I somehow stumbled upon this huge event at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto. For the past 40 years, a group of people have met there on Christmas morning to sing Christmas carols (and a few patriotic songs) to the Vet patients in the hospital. Everyone invited – Gail Grant, who has led this endeavor for a few years now, said they were looking for people who could play instruments – any instrument! So I thought – okay, I know a lot of ukulele players, not to mention my very first job was at the VA Hospital in San Francisco where I worked throughout my high school years and beyond. I was always incredibly impressed with all those patients and the people who worked at the hospital – worked on the wards, in the Pharmacy and EKG Departments. Also, for many years, I was a “military dependent” and I still remember bringing Christmas in with a whole group of lonely GIs who’d walk over to our apartment from the barracks where they lived on Christmas Eve night to hang out and we’d sing Christmas songs. Let's sing another one, or sing it again, they'd say -- even though I was dead tired, we'd sing songs like "I'll be home for Christmas" and so many others over and over again...I knew they didn't want to go back to the barracks. And all of us were thousands of miles from our family and friends back home...

So I let a bunch of ukulele players know and suddenly there’s a whole group who want to go, including June who had gone last year as well. Gail Grant was thrilled to have a group of ukulele players to add to the merry group.

And the Holiday season began with a lovely holiday party with the Santa Cruz Ukulele Club and Marty Carlson in Scotts Valley at their annual party – where my little grandson, Baby Jeremiah, made his debut by singing Jingle Bells into the mike in its entirety (in key too!) – with Nancy Algeria and me playing and singing along with him on ukes in the key of C!

The festive fun continued when a merry little group of us from the San Francisco Ukulele Rebellion played ukuleles and sang down at Pier 7 – Mark and I playing that riff he showed me for Happy Christmas which was a big hit for the bystanders who came by, grabbed kazoos (Mark had obtained 100 Kazoos and was giving them away to people!) – it was a beautiful sunny day down at the piers. Although we were a small group, we rocked!

Then, I went with Baby J and Jeremy and Jen to this special neighborhood in Alameda called "Christmas Tree Lane." We were supposed to meet a "meet-up walking group" for the walk; however, we missed them by about 15 minutes. But we managed to find the neighborhood on our own...and even found parking not too far away. Afterwards, we had dinner at a lovely restaurant called the Ark in downtown Alameda.

fun at Bronco Billy's -- Holiday Uke Jam on Dec. 21st!!!! Margaret made scarves for us to wear at the VA!

Our Fremont Ukulele Group Bronco Billy’s special Holiday Jam was over-the-top cool – with over 50 people showing up! Diane and I were both surprised because when we walked into Bronco Billy’s to set up, there were only two people there – a very nice couple who had never been to any jams before and had a wonderful time! We had planned a small, intimate group setting where we’d all just sit in a circle – and then the people kept coming in with ukuleles. Good thing I had brought enough song packets and sent out pdfs! We were both so touched and amazed and had such a wonderful time. Unfortunately, Baby J was sick with an ear infection and was only able to attend for a short time, but at least he was there to pass out some candy canes. Baby J got to see Santa this year…

Then I got my Christmas San Francisco fix yet again right before Christmas –A simple two word text and the sudden desire to be with my fabulous uke people in San Francisco did the trick! Thirty minutes before uke rebellion began I drove like run Rudolph run to San Francisco amazingly sailing in With no bad traffic and even finding a parking spot! I arrived armed with holiday uke packets from our very successful holiday jam the night before! It was a beautiful warm sunny day in San Francisco! And the Oakside cafe was filled with uke players all those I know and love! After doing songs from daily ukulele which included puff the magic dragon and other 60s faves we revisited some Beatles songs I missed. Then I passed out packets and we played a bunch of holiday songs including Happy Xmas! The vibes were good and spirits high! Then a visitor named Suzy introduced herself and showed us some cool stuff her uke group does in Corvallis Oregon! Wait a sec! I once lived in Corvallis with my kids when they were young...and I had spent a couple of days at my long time friend Colleen’s house last August! She knows Colleen! And she's part if an awesome uke group up there! How fun is that? It was so beautiful in San Francisco that I could not bear to leave, so me and Dean walked up to Alamo Square Park with ukuleles to catch the last of the sun and watch the sun set. My San Francisco Christmas fix happened.

Suzy Doyle (from Corvallis, OR) with me and Dean

We ran into Christina who was taking photos up at the park and a breathtaking San Francisco sunset…

Dean and I practicing the Paul McCartney song, "Ram On" which happens to be "next" in the Daily Ukulele Leap Year edition book. Dean is like the Daily Ukulele book GURU!!! We do a set umber of pages at our meetings..and he gets to work practicing those songs RIGHT AWAY!! He says it's amazing how much you learn when you practice the songs! :) Hey, what a concept! He even had me pull the song up via youtube on my iPhone so we could hear it! I didn't even realize that it's a song Paul plays on his ukulele and I can't find it in my VAST Beatles song collection either. I have to admit that I've learned MANY songs I'd never even think of from those books!

I worked all day Christmas Eve and then managed to get into Safeway right before it closed on Christmas Eve night. Home with some of my family on Christmas Eve night – including Baby J who was super excited about Christmas. It was a very lovely, low-key evening with the “stockings” hung with card and Baby J excited about Santa and his reindeer…

Baby J and sleepy Santa!!!

Baby J ready to see Santa! Listening to Beatles songs on his Daddy's iPhone! Yep you know I've done my job when the Dad must download Beatles songs to phone!