A Honky Tonk Christmas

I'm not overexposed to carols the way that most people are: I don't really shop, and cannot bear radio with all its pledge drives and commercials, So every year I like to stop in at Tam O'Shanters in Los Angeles and listen to the Victorian carolers sing table side. I'm also not a very sentimental person but once a year I like to let the carols make me cry.

This year, however, I couldn't even get into the bar at Tam O'Shanters. It was packed, and so with heavy heart I returned home.

On Sunday we went to the Palms in Wonder Valley for breakfast. Someone was in the back room playing Christmas carols on the piano. A couple of us got up and went back to listen.

The playing was done in honky tonk style and fit the atmosphere of the Palms perfectly, as you can see by the shape of this piano.

Later I asked the player if it was honky tonk because of the piano (slightly out of tune) or if it was a style she played. She said it was her style and something she'd studied for years.

She also told me about her graduate studies in which she was following the voyage of one particular American ship on its travels.

She is Miss Ida Lane.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, here's a little scene I snapped. If you live in the desert or are a regular reader of this blog, you may be able to identify this, it's something that I've snapped before. If you think you've got it, leave me a comment. (Leave me a comment, anyway - it's awfully quiet in here!)