BETHEL — At his grandmother’s Andover home, Kevin Scott Hall remembers the Franklin stove and the delicious smells of the holiday roast mixed with the burning wood coming through the vents in the floor and filling the upstairs bedrooms.

“Outside, there was always snow so you always got that cozy feeling on wintry days,” Hall said. “You’d go by houses, look in the windows and see the Christmas tree and the smoke coming out of the chimneys.”

He wrote a song about his memories of Maine with the help of Waterville native Judy (Labbe) Pancoast. The song, “Christmastime in Maine,” has an old-time country feel.

Hall and Pancoast live in other states now, but are nostalgic for their early years in Maine.

Hall sings: “Once a year I make the drive up north, Route 95. Back home to the childhood I once knew.”

It is easy to sing along with Hall’s repeating chorus: “It’s Christmas Time in Maine. Christmastime in Maine. Where December’s chill is warmed by fire’s glow. It’s Christmas Time in Maine. Christmastime in Maine. Through frosted window panes, we’ll reminisce and watch the falling snow.”

“We recorded it in late October last year and barely got it out by Thanksgiving, so we didn’t have time to do a full campaign,” Hall said.

Even so, three Internet stations — Mill City Radio, The Sounds of Christmas and Positively Charged Radio — have picked it up for their all-Christmas streaming playlists. It can also be downloaded at Spotify and YouTube. This year, Hall and Pancoast expect to hear the song on more outlets, including possibly some independent Maine radio stations.

Some of the other lyrics in the song that are specific to Maine and Oxford County include: “We’re cozied up head to toe in L.L.Bean,” and “I bet it’s still a piece of cake to be making figure eights on Rangeley Lake.” Pancoast sings both lines.

When Hall was 6, his father got a new job and the family moved to Massachusetts.

“I’ve always considered it dual citizenship,” he said. “My grandparents (on both sides), cousins, aunts and uncles all lived in Andover. I was going up there every summer. There were a couple of years I stayed with my grandparents all summer.”

His maternal grandparents Howard and Ella Glover lived in East Andover.  He would snowmobile with his cousin, Gary Meisner.

“One of my great memories was being on the snowmobile and speeding that snowmobile across ‘the airport,'” Hall said.

He said he recalls ice fishing on C Pond in Upton and skating on Howard Pond and another pond near the center of town.

Hall now lives in rural Ashburnham, Massachusetts, at a cottage on a lake. It is the town where his family moved when it left Andover. His parents, now in their 80s, live nearby, as does his sister. After living for 30 years in New York City, where he was a singer and songwriter, author and nightclub performer, Hall moved to Ashburnham in Worcester County to help with his parents’ care.

To winterize his cottage, Hall bought a wood stove like one he remembers at his grandparents’ home in Andover.

He said “Let’s dig out these rusty skates” is not only a lyric from “Christmastime in Maine.” It is also what he hopes to do this winter as he tries to relearn to skate at his pond.

Judy (Labbe) Pancoast

In the mid-1960s, Waterville had Christmas lights strung from light pole to light pole down Main Street, and Santa Claus would come to Castonguay Square. Christmas music was played over loudspeakers.

“The jewelers on Main Street in Waterville had the first moving Santa Claus, a life-size Santa Claus that moved,” Pancoast said. “That was humongous. Everybody went down to see that Santa Claus. I was like Ralphie (from ‘A Christmas Story’) looking in the window.

“My father worked for the Scott Paper Co. Every year, the company put on a big party at the Waterville Armory for all the employees. My mother got a box of chocolates. Each child under age 12 got a gift. They had hay rides outside.

“We used to get so much snow when I was little in Waterville that we could dig tunnels and snow caves in our front yard.”

She went on to attend the University of Maine.

“You had to be a hardy soul to go to college in Orono,” Pancoast said.

She began her professional life as a disc jockey at WPOR in Portland — her on-air name was Judy Michaels. She was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Children’s Album in 2011.

Now living in Connecticut, Pancoast said that while she does not like long winters, she misses white Christmases and playing in the snow, like she did as a child. Her parents and sister have died, so she rarely returns to Waterville. She returns to other parts of Maine every summer, however, to do performances as part of her library tour.

Pancoast has written other songs that were inspired by her childhood in Maine. “The Great Toboggan Disaster” is about a hellacious ride down the hill in her backyard with her brother egging her on, then begging her not to tell their parents when he jumped and she crashed.

Another song, “The House on Christmas Street,” was inspired by a memory of her father driving her family to see a house on Mount Merici, decorated to the nines for Christmas.

She wrote “Where I Live” while visiting Acadia, a trip she and her family make every summer.

Pancoast said she has recently decorated her Christmas tree (always real, but no longer hauled out of the forest, like her family did in Waterville). She trims her tree with her parents’ decorations.

“I love Maine,” Pancoast said. “I’ll always be a Mainer. I’ll never give that up.”

Next year, Pancoast and Hall hope to tour together in Maine. In the meantime, Pancoast has planned a solo holiday show for Dec. 16 at Veazie Community School, 1040 School St. The event is scheduled for 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. and open to the public. Pancoast’s performance is to include “Christmastime in Maine.”

 

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