Dana Perry

Here be "Wisco Winter", a co-write with myLove and Everything Buddy, German Joseph Schrock 💪♥️

Oh Wisconsin, you beautiful frigid bitch...
Watch for the full-band release of this one next month, and come to these shows:
2/12 at
2/20 at (get tix on their website)

Ah, yes. The Solstice.

My Gramma, the Matriarch of the family, raised 5 children mostly by herself. At Christmas time, she wanted her kids to take turns opening gifts one at a time, so she could see the look on their faces and enjoy the moment they opened her gift. Being a very low-income family, it may have only been one or two "dollar store" gifts a piece, it didn't matter. The gift was never the point. The point was giving it, and sharing the moment together. It's a tradition she carried as her kids grew and had their own kids.

Christmas dinner was sometimes the usual turkey-n-such, but sometimes we simply didn't have the money for a big spread. So we'd have spaghetti or pizza, or various aunts and uncles working in food service would sometimes bring home extra leftovers from the restaurant and that was Christmas dinner. As we grew up it got a little easier; and even though we could likely afford the full "traditional" spread eventually, dinner stayed more of a potluck, everyone bringing something to the table.

Over the years, the family grew and grew...and fast-forward to well over 50 years later, there are damn-near 30 bodies at my family's Christmas and these traditions STILL stand today. Everyone in the family gets everyone else a gift - doesn't matter if it's a dollar tree gift - and everyone takes turns opening all of the gifts. One gift, one at a time. It takes hours upon hours, depending on how focused we are and how antsy the kids are, how restless the smokers are, etc. And dinner consists of a veritable buffet of anything from spaghetti to casserole to fried chicken.

Gramma made her Great Transition back into The Big Everything a few years ago, I miss her and talk to her all the time. I used to sit next to her during presents, poking her every so often when I'd catch her dozing in the 4th or 5th hour, sayin' "haha, wake up Gramma! You started this s**t!" 😂

I go home for the chaos of that one day, but the rest of my winter is very different when I'm alone. No tree. No decor. No concept of Christmas until the day of. Just music within pure Silence. Inward reflection. Hibernation.

And often, the entirety of Joni Mitchell's "Blue" album.