A Christmas Carol

Every year around the holidays, a group of extended coworkers gets together to sing Christmas carols in the (acoustically friendly) foyer of the main building. I always participate, because 1) I like to sing, and I get very few opportunities to practice reading music, and 2) I sorta dig Christmas carols.

It's generally a very pleasant experience. The acoustics are very flattering, much like singing in the shower, and the other singers are very talented -- not at all what I expected when I first got involved a few years ago. We generally have an eager audience to listen to us, and we sing during the lunch hour, so it's not like it interferes with my rigorous daily schedule of meetings.

Today was the second (and final) holiday performance for the year. We sang for an hour, which is just long enough to make my out-of-practice voice hoarse for the rest of the day.

I sang in the choir for six years when I was in school, which means six seasons of Christmas concerts, not including the three years that I've participated with this work choir. That's a lot of time for me to develop strong opinions of many of the songs that we sing. Care to know what I think of them? Too bad. I'm telling you anyway.

1) Jolly Old St. Nicholas. I hate this song. I abhor it. It's so asinine, and very eight years old, and to be frank with you, I haven't been eight in nineteen years. Plus, it reminds me very vividly of the choir in fifth grade, and the stupid Christmas show that we must've performed a dozen times in various venues around Corpus Christi, and the solo that my best friend JoAnn sang. She sang, "Johnny wants a pair of skates," and her inflection was so damned perfect, and I was jealous, because I? I got nothing. No solo, nothing special. I was just part of the choir.

I'm not bitter. Really. But I hate this song, and we sing it every time, and if I never had to hear it again, it would be too soon.

2) O Come Emmanuel. This is one of those rare Christmas carols that I never heard before joining this choir. It's beautiful, actually -- haunting, if you'll forgive the cliche -- and I adore the phrasing the choir leader uses:
piano for the verses --
"O come, o come Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the son of God appear;"

and then a beautiful forte
"Rejoice!
Rejoice!
Emmanuel has come to thee, o Israel."

Truly gorgeous. The text doesn't really convey it.

3) Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells sometimes runs the risk of sounding asinine (see "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" above). I don't particularly like the verses, and it isn't as though the audience can understand what we're singing anyway, but I like how we go from unison on the verses to four-part harmony on the chorus.

4) O Come All Ye Faithful. There's an alternate soprano descant for this song that I don't know yet. A few sopranos sing it, and I sing the melody. It's in a good key, so I enjoy this one.

5) O Holy Night. We don't actually sing this one. More's the pity. It's my favorite Christmas carol, and I can totally handle the leaps near the end. It isn't really suited to a choir, though -- particularly one where all the sopranos secretly want to be the lead singer. (I've described every choir, haven't I?)

6) Silent Night. We sing this one in German, which feels a bit affected to me. Every year, someone has to go through the proper pronunciation of the German words, and it seems to me we could just sing it in English and be done with it. Couldn't we?

It's a nice song, but I think I've sung it a thousand times. I could sing it in my sleep, and you probably could, too.

No, I was not one of the lucky ones who got to skip work to see The Lord of the Rings. Nor did I see the midnight viewing; nor did I skip work yesterday to see the entire trilogy. So you will not hear me waxing poetic about what a cinematic masterpiece it is. Not yet, anyway.

While the rest of you slackers came down with the hobbit flu, I was at work, trying to get something productive done. No, I can't say that with a straight face. What of it?