Annette Collier focuses on children, Christmas and carols

ALBANY — Annette Collier clearly enjoys children and Christmas.

Drop by the her home on Tuxedo Avenue in Albany, and you’ll find a menagerie of musical Christmas characters, all lined up and ready to sing in Christmas. It’s something she’s been known to share with the kids she reads to regularly at Albany schools and day care facilities.

“I’ve been storytelling for 18 years,” Collier, dressed in a navy Christmas sweater and Santa earrings, said last week. “The schools have given me some of my animals. Most I’ve ordered and collected.”

The septuagenarian, who’s been a resident of Albany since she was six months old, says she has, at last count, 40 of the figures. And that doesn’t count her inflatable front porch snowman and other yuletide figures, music boxes and decor that fill her home.

Some light up, some move and dance, but they all play Christmas music. And, she says, the kids love to play with them when they visit. Her favorite, she said, is a trio of penguins who sing.

“The children come over and I have them sing with them,” she said.

Collier said she doesn’t have any grandchildren, but if that’s a void, it’s one she fills by visiting young children’s classes and reading to them. Among the organizations she reads for regularly are Children’s Friend and Mrs. Petty’s day care. Recently, she began reading at Morningside Elementary School.

For the past 18 years, she’s been reading to 4-year-old pre-kindergartners at Sylvandale Elementary School. “Only one teacher’s been out there longer than me,” she said.

On her recent storytelling visits, she said, she’s focused on Christmas stories.

“I just read all different kinds of books,” Collier said of the selections she reads when it’s not the holiday season. “I don’t do Dr. Seuss, though. I don’t care for Dr. Seuss.

“And the Lee County Library is really helpful to me when they (schools) want (stories that coincide with study) units.”

She sometimes brings one or two pieces from her Christmas toy collection when she reads during the holidays. Her newest addition, Jose, a plush Christmas tree that sings “Feliz Navidad,” accompanied her when she visited a class that included Spanish-speaking children. The little musical holiday toy helped bridge the gap between Collier, who doesn’t speak Spanish, and the kids.

As far as the singing, dancing figures, she said, the kids “really get with all this.”

Anecdotally, she’s found that one song is most prevalent on the musical figures, whether it’s being sung or, in one case, croaked by a stuffed frog. “On most of them,” Collier said, “they have them singing ‘Jingle Bells.’”

Collier said her reading visits are not just with children. On Mondays, she said, she reads to consumers at Albany ARC, an organization that helps those with mental disabilities. She also reads to older women at Lee County Health, she said, adding that after the storytelling “they love to reminisce.”

In fact, about the only day you can expect Annette Collier not to be reading somewhere is Tuesdays.

“I don‘t do it on Tuesday,” she said, “because Tuesday is my bridge day.”

And when she’s not entertaining children or adults with her Christmas menagerie or reading stories to them, she’s writing. Each week, she said, she writes about 100 cards that include prayers or copies of encouraging poems for cancer patients.

It all keeps her busy, but it does something else just as important. It keeps her fulfilled.