THE YELLOW COVER TALKS! Q&A

Q: Please share with us your favorite glam moments for Christmas with your mother or siblings.

My family is really casual during the holidays We don't put on a huge holiday party It's just a very intimate and introverted familial holiday On Christmas Eve, Mike, the kids, and I dress up in matching pajamas At first, Mike thought it was the corniest thing in the world, and he refused to put matching pajamas on But with all his daughters pressuring him, he gave in It's hard for him when all this estrogen surrounds him All three girls guilted him, he put it on, and then he got a kick out of it It was very silly, so every holiday now, I buy all the same pajamas for us to wear on Christmas Eve.

I will tell you a tradition that I love with my mother is gift wrapping She's a gift-wrapping queen! My mother used to work at a gift-wrapping center in a department store to pay her way through school She got so talented that people would come to the gift-wrapping center and request only her! By the time she stopped working there, the whole family had already become accustomed to taking all their gifts to my mother for her to wrap them It is something she really enjoyed and as a kid she would bring my sister and I into it Ultimately gift wrapping became our tradition together We even have gift-wrapping challenges and contests amongst ourselves

Q: A home is a place of refuge, and the importance of "Home" for the holidays is a tradition. Can you tell us where home originated for you as a girl and what memories are your favorites?

I'm from Philadelphia, the Broad and Olney area My mother lived directly next door to my grandparents for a few years, so we were a very close-knit family that did everything together So, for me, home originated in Philadelphia, although eventually, folks got married, and as the family grew, folks migrated My grandparents' house on Widener place had always been home for everyone It was the heart of the family When they sold that house, it was difficult for us to part ways with it

They bought it for $17,000 as their first home Generations grew up in it The whole neighborhood grew up in my grandparents' house so much that I must make my way to that street when I'm in Philadelphia One day I drove by, and this lady was outside planting roses, my grandmother's favorite flower I just sat in the car watching her plant rose bushes and wanted to get out and speak But I thought it might be creepy to run up to her and say, "my grandmother used to plant roses there too " The family living in that house is taking outstanding care of it Even my uncles and mom have shared that whenever they're driving through Philadelphia, although none of us live there anymore, we must always go back to that house and check on it because the house itself is like a family member It held so many memories