Today is the day of our big Christmas Concert at school.  It’s incredibly fun and incredibly stressful, but if everything has gone according to plan, it should go smoothly.  It’s worth it to see the kids singing and playing and having a good time.

As I’ve grown older and, arguably, more professional (and almost certainly more ornery and ill-tempered), I’ve scaled back a bit of the theatricality and bombast of the Christmas Concert to something a bit more manageable.  Gone are the days of singing while standing on a piano (I did that once, years ago).  I also strive to make the concert focused on the kids and Jesus.

One big change this year is that our Dance and Choral students won’t be performing, because they had their performances as part of the Middle School Play last Friday.  The Foreign Language Students will still get up there and belt out Christmas tunes in various languages.

I’ll be doing a full write-up one Saturday (possibly tomorrow) covering it, but for today, just pray for yours portly.  I’m confident it will be a good concert, I just gotsta get through it!

As a preview, here’s what my students are performing:

• Middle School Music Ensemble
  • “Silent Night“—first slow and in 3/4, then fast and in 4/4!
  • “Joy to the World“—in a more traditional setting
• High School Music Ensemble
  • “I Wish You Love” by Icelandic jazz songstress Laufey
  • “On Christmas Day”—a piece that one of my students wrote and arranged himself!
  • “O Holy Night“—the best Christmas song ever written

Merry Christmas!

—TPP