Our whole family assembles in Chicago at Christmas and usually in Aspen in the summer.

A typical Christmas is me shucking oysters. I love them and I always get them in at Christmas.

There are very few people who have done more than one Christmas album.

Christmas albums are not something you do frequently.

Well because I have twin seven-year-old boys I enjoy the gift giving stuff a great deal. We do both Hanukkah and Christmas so it is a costly though extremely pleasing proposition.

I'm well-travelled so I can see places coming up. I went to St. Croix in the West Indies at Christmas and it had been hit by a really bad tornado. Values there have gone down but I guarantee they will be up again in eight years. So I'll get in now while it's cheap as chips.

People have nannies and big cars and they want to go to Maui for Christmas. When there are those kind of stakes involved people get ruthless.

So when I was 13 I basically left home and never returned and lived at home again. I would come home for a week at Christmas and two weeks in the summer only.

To understand this Christmas record you have to understand our ministry.

Why not collect and clean chicken wishbones in the run-up to Christmas spray them silver and use each to pinch together a white hem-stitch napkin?

I loved 'White Christmas' for the music aspect. I was into musical theater.