Family sing-alongs were the best part of growing up. My father played the guitar, so we occasionally sat around the dining room table and sang there; but mostly I remember singing in the car on long road trips. To this day, our family has special songs for special days. For instance, my mother and my aunt have an ongoing battle to wake one another up on Thanksgiving morning with this little ditty, sung to the tune of Frère Jacques:

Next Thanksgiving, next Thanksgiving, save your bread, save your bread. Shove it up the turkey, shove it up the turkey, eat the bird, eat the bird.

And of course, with a nod to Allan Sherman, we've declared May 23rd to be National Liverwurst Day, which we celebrate religiously by singing his liverwurst song (not sure of the name, but know all the lyrics).

Other family favorites were: Roll Me Over In The Clover (at age four, I thought it was something like "This Old Man"), Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Bill Bailey, the Masochism Tango, The Lady In Red (aka Let Her Sleep Under The Bar), Glorious (one keg of beer for the four of us), the Draft Dodger Rag, National Embalming School (don't ask), Humoresque, as well as several songs of our own composition (borrowing liberally from other melodies), including songs about cats, poodles, and Milkbone biscuits set to the Old Spice theme.

And that's not counting all the Hebrew songs, parodies of operas, and camp songs.