Catherine Nicolai

speaker
319 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard Jan 2025

Catherine Nicolai’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep · Merry Much Happens - 2024 · 16 Dec 2024 podcast
But she was ready for a bit of company, for the house to hum with life again, for the good scents of coffee cake and scones to rise up from the kitchen, and for guests to come and celebrate the end of one year. and the beginning of another.
She set her boxes of decorations down at the foot of the staircase and pulled her overcoat from the hook in the front office and went out to help Chef with the food. They embraced in the cold air and caught up as they carried the food and wine down the long hallway and into the kitchen. Chef had been traveling, as they always did during the off-season.
Some of it for rest and vacation, and some to cook in other kitchens. They'd been somewhere sunny and warm, and after the holidays were headed to a ski chalet for the rest of the winter. In the boxes were jars of beautiful green olives, packets of pine nuts, bags of red onions, and sleeves of fancy crisp crackers.
The innkeeper recognized the ingredients for Chef's fancy green olive pâté that they served as past appetizers for their guests. There were lots of other things, too. They'd be making a few big meals and afternoon teas and breakfast over the week or so that the inn was full.
Chef would make a gingerbread inn that would sit on the entryway table and plates of their dark chocolate truffles with flakes of sea salt on top. She left Chef to their work and got back to decorating. She was dusting the reindeer and setting them in a scene on the long mantle above the fireplace. when she realized music would make her work a little merrier.
They had a fancy sound system with speakers in all the common rooms, but she also kept a turntable on the desk by the window, and in the boxes she'd brought down were a few holiday albums in cardboard sleeves. She took one out, holding it carefully along its edges with her fingertips, and spun it to read the list of songs on each side.
They were old, jazzy versions, sung by crooners and sirens, and she set it on the player and flipped the switch to start it turning. she laid the needle carefully into the groove and listened to the piano and horns and jingle bells as she looked at the cover art.
By the afternoon, the tables and mantles were done up, the wreath was on the front door, and the guest rooms had been made ready with fresh sheets and towels. and small tabletop ceramic trees that lit up with a switch and made the rooms glow with soft colors. She shared a plate of sandwiches with Chef in the kitchen, and they talked through the menus.
The next day, guests would begin to arrive, and they were booked full for the holiday. What's left? Chef asked. The innkeeper took a long drink of her tea and said, Just the tree. In years past, they'd had it in different spots. Sometimes in the front hall, to greet guests as they arrived.
and sometimes on the back porch where they served champagne and looked out at the houses across the lake lit up with holiday lights. But this year they were doing something different. They'd been working for months to restore the ballroom on the second floor. There had been a leak in the ceiling that had damaged the plaster, and there had been many missing tiles in the parquet floor.
The light fixtures had needed rewiring, and the whole space needed fresh paint, new curtains, and furnishings. Now it was ready. the ceiling patched and painted, glowing filament bulbs in the sconces, and a charming, if slightly mismatched, collection of settees and side tables clustered in groups. The innkeeper thought it would make the perfect spot for the Christmas tree.
for guests to gather to share gifts and wishes for peace on earth. And then, when the year ended, to clink champagne glasses and have a midnight kiss. She climbed the stairs to check the space and found the freshly polished floors glowing. and the candles on the windowsills ready to be lit. She had the boxes of ornaments and many, many strings of light ready for the tree.
From one window she could see the lake, frozen for a dozen feet at the shore, and with dark, rippling water further out. there were still ducks, a dozen or more with dark green and gray feathers and one white farm duck among them. And she smiled and said in a whisper that fogged the glass, found family. It's how she felt too, here with the house, with Chef and the guests who'd be arriving soon.
She crossed the room and looked out another window and saw a big truck with a tall Norway spruce in its bed, trundling down the drive, beeping its horn. The Tree Farm with just a week till Christmas, there hadn't been many customers coming down the long gravel two-track to the farm today.
Most folks had their tree already, and while we might get a few stragglers here and there, some Kringle-come-latelys, as we called them, We were wrapping up for the year, in little ways, all over the farm.
Two of our three tractors that pulled trailers lined with hay bales, usually full of customers out into the fields to find their trees, were now settled into the barn, swept clean, and tucked in for the rest of the winter. The last box of candy canes had been opened and hung on the branches of the giant tree in the shop, and we didn't anticipate needing any more this season.
A few of our workers had taken their pay and their stocking from the long mantel, full of tips and treats. and wished us all a happy holiday and gotten on the road, headed home. There were just a few of us left as the sun came closer to setting and the night air turned cold. It had been a sunny day, and in the bright light, busy with loading trees into pickup trucks, or onto car roofs.
I'd shed my coat, warmed as much by my efforts as by the merry mood around me. But now I pulled it back on and zipped it up to my nose. I found my hat in the pocket and drew it firmly over my ears. I wasn't ready to go home yet. The farm is really beautiful at night. Along the drive are strings of lights, draped on poles wrapped to look like candy canes.
And near the barn and shop, everything is lit. Candles in every window, wreaths on every door. We have warming stations, heaters with their welcoming glow. All of it really cheerful and lovely, but my favorite spot was out in the open fields, under the stars, where the moonlight reflected on the snow. And the only sound was of the crunch of your boots. on your own breath.
It was my job each night to make one last round with the tractor through the fields, to make sure all of the customers had been collected, no villager left behind. And now that I was better bundled, I set out. We had a half dozen fields that were ready for cutting, and many, many more planted for the future.
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