For the past two decades, Steve Albini and his wife Heather Whinna have spent every Christmas morning delivering gifts to families in need throughout Chicago. The legendary audio engineer known for producing too many groundbreaking records to count, who is also kind of a notorious curmudgeon, recently published a heartwarming essay on The Huffington Post entitled "Why I Haven't Had a Conventional Christmas in 20 Years," in which he explains why he and his wife started playing Santa Claus and why, often with the help of famous friends including Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Portlandia's Fred Armisen, they continue this charitable tradition that makes for an even better holiday story than even the folklore behind the old "Yes, Virginia" editorial.
The project started when Whinna stopped by the Post Office and came across bins full of letters addressed to Santa Claus that had been left out for people to read and respond to. She brought a letter home to share with Albini, and as he describes in his essay, what they found was far from "impish requests for toys or a new bike." Instead, most of the letters were "desperate pleas from heads of household asking for help."
He adds that "the realization that there were hundreds – no, thousands – of these letters changed something in me." Thus the couple decided to respond to the letter in person by delivering a package to the family that Christmas morning. Over the years they took home more letters and delivered increasingly more packages to more families in need.
Albini and Whinna continued the tradition on their own until 2002 when the theater group Second City began raising money for the not-so-secret Santa project with an annual improv marathon. In his essay the producer notes that Tweedy and Armisen are both not only return participants in the 24-hour improv show but they both help out with gift deliveries; Armisen has proven especially helpful during deliveries as he also takes on the role of translator for Spanish-speaking families.
As Pitchfork points out, the roster of famous musicians and comedians who have participated in the "Letters to Santa" project also includes the Breeders, the Mountain Goats and Will Oldham among others. This year's show just completed its livestream and featured Tweedy and Armisen joined by Thao Nguyen, Kim Deal, A.C. Newman, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant, Jack McBrayer and Horatio Sanz just to name a few.
Watch Jeff Tweedy perform "Black Eye" at the 2010 rendition of the charity marathon event below.
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