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Instead of caroling and ringing church bells, the most prominent sounds on Christmastide were now town criers calling: "No Christmas! No Christmas!"

“I am not a pretty crier,” she said.

Then, interrupting herself midsentence and cutting her speech short, she got in the best one-liner of the night before rushing off the stage: “I’m not an attractive crier — have a good evening!”

Finally, the Bidens ended up at Nantucket’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, clapping as the town crier led the countdown and the tree was illuminated with colored lights.

Seven years ago I profiled him in a column that said that due to rising temperatures, his glacier project had turned him into a sort of “town crier of decline.”