coronavirus

‘Full of Gratitude': Salem Family Honors Essential Workers With Holiday Song

A family in Salem, Massachusetts composed and recorded an original Christmas song to thank people battling on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic

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Now that the holiday season is here, a Salem, Massachusetts family is showing their appreciation for frontline workers through song.

If you live in New England, you may have heard a new holiday jingle on your local radio station thanking doctors, nurses, first responders, supermarket employees and many other essential workers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty during the pandemic.

“Every essential worker and their families...If it can reach every single one of their ears it would make our Christmas. It would make our holiday season," said Karen Scalia of Salem. 

Scalia composed an original Christmas song titled, "Thank You, It's Christmas," and recruited her musically inclined family members to record it in the hopes of raising the spirits of essential workers during the holidays.

Not long after the pandemic began, many people showed their appreciation for essential workers with tributes across the nation. Scalia herself felt compelled to thank a frontline worker in August.

“I was driving to a job one morning and I saw an essential worker," Scalia said, “and I had the impulse to roll down my window and say to her, 'Thank you for your service.'”

Scalia, an actor and a writer, began composing the song that day. She turned to her family of musicians for help in recording it.

Derek Dupuis, her nephew who graduated from Berklee College of Music, can be heard playing the piano in the song.

“I think it sends a great, great message to especially the essential workers so we’re thankful for them but hopefully it’ll bring a smile to everybody’s face,” he said. 

You can hear Scalia’s brother in law, Dan, playing the drums while her sister Stacey accompanies Scalia in singing the chorus. Scalia’s niece Samantha, a senior at the University of New England, is the lead singer.

The project is a real family affair.

“I thought it was fantastic,” Samantha said. “I mean, the essential workers have done so much for us these last few months during the pandemic. The least we can do is thank them and through a song. I feel like that’s the perfect way.”

If Scalia could thank all essential workers, she said she would let them know that there are a lot of people supporting them. 

"I would say, 'We got you. We know how tough this has been and we’re so full of gratitude,'" Scalia said.

Some of Scalia’s friends helped put some finishing touches on the song, capped off my mixing and mastering by a couple of Grammy-award winning artists in New York.

Scalia is hoping essential workers find strength from the song to keep going. She said others can help as well by just saying a simple thank you, which doesn’t cost a thing, but goes a long way.

“I think the one thing that nobody can argue with is gratitude.” Scalia said. “Everybody can say thank you.”

Scalia is hoping radio stations across the nation so that all essential workers can hear it and know they are appreciated. 

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