Sunday, December 26, 2004 - Holly-Day Wishes

Good wishes and good will to you all!

Christmas Eve didn't exactly go as expected. We were hit by a rather large snowfall that afternoon (about 8 inches), making driving trecherous, but as we live only a few minutes drive from the church, we made the trek anyway (very slowly). A surprisingly large number of people made it to the early church service, and it was lovely. Rascal didn't really have enough patience to sit through it, but by and large he kept quiet.

After the service Ironwolf and the boys headed out to grandma's house. I was about to make a quick trek home (since I was the one responsible for the bell choir director's Christmas gift, and I, uh, forgot it at home...), when the Chancel (vocal) choir director told me not to bother because the bell choir director had just called - she was snowed in and couldn't make it for the next service.

Oh, yay. We in the handbell choir were without a director, with 1 1/2 hours until "showtime".

Thankfully we have another musical professional in the chancel choir (she teaches at a local college). She arrived early, and was kind enough to agree to direct the group. So I made a copy of all the music (since our regular director had the conductor's scores) and went through it with her while other members of the bell choir set up.

We had barely enough time to practice each of the three pieces once.

So, how did it turn out?

Not too bad, actually. The first piece was rather rocky, since as a group we weren't terribly familiar with it, but we kept it together. The second piece (which we had performed before) went alright, with a few minor errors (obvious to me, but not necessarily to the congregation). The last piece, which is a very difficult version of _Carol of the Bells_, went incredibly well. I don't think we have ever played it better.

Thank you Lois for being our angel that evening!

After that I did head off to join the others, and while things were winding down, everyone stayed long enough for me to unwrap my gifts and to socialize a bit for they started taking off. Plus they also saved me some dinner, which I was very grateful for at 10 PM. We shuffled the boys off to bed when we arrived home about 11 PM, despite cries of protest. "We're not tired!" Then we prepared for Santa's arrival before tumbling into bed, exhausted from our day.