Uncle Mort, a veteran of 108 Christmases, has razorsharp memories of long stretches of silence at various times of the day. And there were silent nights, too.Nowadays, he makes Herculean efforts to quieten things down on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This includes turning phones to off position, stilling pendulums on grandfather clocks and carefully determining where the “on-off” switches are on all other noisemaking devices. When he can’t locate switches but knows the devices to be “noise makers,” he pulls their plugs for 48 hours.Then, from the far reaches of his memory bank, he brings happiest memories front and ...