Thelma Cuccinello: `Nuts at
Christmas'
Christmas
was Thelma Cuccinello's favorite holiday, a time when she
could deck her house in Wilmot, N.H., with all the
ornaments and decorations she had made over the years.
And not just her house. Her eldest daughter, Cheryl
O'Brien, who lives in Bedford, Mass., recently opened a
box of Christmas wreaths, only to realize that every one
had been made by her mother. "She made the skirt for our
Christmas tree, the decoration for our mantlepiece," Mrs.
O'Brien said. "She and Dad would go nuts at
Christmas."
When her three daughters were growing up in Lexington,
Mass., Mrs. Cuccinello made their clothes and their
costumes, as well as the costumes of their friends.
Later, Mrs. Cuccinello, 71, made quilts for each one of
her 10 grandchildren. To her daughters now scattered
around the country, she sent weekly packets of motherly
advice: articles about teenage acne and the dangers of
Internet access to Mrs. O'Brien, a mother of two boys,
and about homemade anti-cockroach poison and bug sprays
to her daughter in Florida.
Mrs. Cuccinello, who moved with her husband, Albert,
to western New Hampshire, was in many ways a storybook
grandmother &emdash; cozy and game. She traveled when she
could &emdash; to Europe, Hawaii and California, where
she was headed on Sept. 11 aboard American Airlines 11,
to visit her sister and brother-in-law.
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