Christmas Music

My parents have done a wonderful job raising a musical family. I wouldn't say any of us are musical prodigies or professional performers, but we have all gained a great love for music through the experiences we've had thanks to the urging of Mom and Dad. Years ago we visited my dear great-grandmother (who eventually lived to be 105) in St. George at Christmas time. We prepared a musical program and performed it for her in her living room, ending with her favorite Primary song, "I Wonder When He Comes Again" (now one of my favorite "Christmas" songs!) I don't recall how many years we made the trip and performed for her, but it was always just for her and it was wonderful.

As the years went by our little program grew. We'd add more songs and my mom would write up a spoken program with a nice message to go with it. After Grandma passed away we continued the yearly tradition, performing the program for other family and friends in town as our gift to them. My dad wrote a great program one year. Another year I got inspired and wrote a program that was a spin-off of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol." And always there was a lot of wonderful Christmas music. My mom has built quite an amazing music library with some wonderful choir pieces.

We haven't done an official program for a few years, but I asked my mom if we could just all sit down and sing a few of those favorite pieces that we love. So we set up folding chairs in the basement, hauled in a digital piano, and sat around singing for an hour or so. There were toddlers climbing all over laps, a few croaky voices here and there, and a definite (but not terribly obvious) lack of rehearsal, but it was lots of fun anyway! The lack of audience (and matching sweatshirts, hee-hee!) was a big bonus! Dicie and Dallin got a chance to play a few of their Christmas piano songs which was a good opportunity for them.

My favorite part had to have been dusting off the old family band. Mom and Dad met each other in High School band and us children were all "highly encouraged" to play band instruments. The family Christmas program is never complete without the band number (and the accompanying moans and protests from some of us)! Did I mention that in-laws are not exempt from our musical exploits? Yep, Brett had to come out of trumpet retirement since Jr. High and was even provided with a spare instrument! This year was perhaps the most fun to me because we had no audience! We sounded wonderfully terrible and it was great.

Me on clarinet (with my fabulous diaphragm-crushing belly - how's that for attractive?), Brother-in-Law Chace on clarinet, Stacey on flute (with her much less imposing baby belly), Melinda on Flute, Tracy in the corner on drums, Brady on Baritone, Aaron on Trombone, Brian on Trumpet, Dad on French Horn, and Corey on French Horn. Brian and Corey must have swapped instruments! Not pictured is Mom as the ever exuberant band director. Brett got off the hook because we were missing a trumpet mouthpiece. Holly and her family stayed in California for Thanksgiving this year and we missed them, and Holly's beautiful soprano and oboe, a ton! 

Since it had been several years since we'd last done this, my kids were newly impressed seeing me play an instrument. Perhaps we've inspired a new generation of band geeks!