Christmas Concerts

What a wonderful weekend! Saturday night we went to the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. It was so good! They always do such a great job and we love the King's Singers, who were the special guests. They did a fun production of The Twelve Days of Christmas with dancers portraying each of the gifts. It was a lot of fun. My favorites, though, were Richard Elliot's organ solo, I Saw Three Ships, and Mack Wilberg's new arrangement of O, Holy Night!. The organ solo was amazing! and I think Richard Elliot got the biggest applause out of all the numbers. He was all over the place and on one of the verses, he did the melody with his feet on the pedals and they were just flying! Mack's new arrangement of O, Holy Night!, was for the men of the choir and the King's Singers and it was beautiful. It was different from any arrangement I've ever heard, but so beautiful. Sometimes that song can be over-the-top, especially with the high note at the end (I love the high note at the end, it's just very easy to go overboard with it), but Mack's arrangement wasn't over-the-top at all. The counter tenors still hit the high note at the end, but it almost didn't register that it was the climactic ending. It was just very peaceful. And the staging and lighting were so well done. The overall experience of that piece was just perfect.

After the concert we had to wait about 45 minutes to get out of the parking terrace we were parked in. Gorgeous, Tergaso, LSOC and I played "Salt Lake City, Plaza Hotel, Deal or No Deal" while we waited. We were outside waiting for the The Countess to bring the car down so Gorgeous wouldn't have to climb all the stairs to the level were parked on. Tergaso had called The Countess to see if they had moved yet and Gorgeous commented that she looked like Howie Mandel talking to the banker. So Tergaso and LSOC jumped on the idea and decided what their cases held and what the banker's deal was. It was funny. Gorgeous ended up taking the deal for 730,000. But then, it was "What's the Deal?" week so she had to spin the wheel (Tergaso with her eyes closed.) She ended up doubling it and going to the car with 1.46 million!! Not bad for a few minutes entertainment. My family is absolutely crazy and I love them!

I also had my Christmas Concert with my bell choir. We had a good turnout and performed well so I'm happy. We played some fun music again this year and it's so fun to talk to the audience after and answer questions about playing bells. Not many people are familiar with handbell choirs. My favorite number we played is Pat-A-Pan. It's a lot of fun. We also played a medley from The Nutcracker that is a lot of fun (and very difficult!).

I have one more day of lessons and then I'm off for Christmas break. I still have some shopping to finish up and all of my wrapping and delivering! I feel like I lost all of last week with our health scare! (Not that I'm complaining too much - I'm too grateful that I don't have whooping cough and that I'm on the mend instead of getting worse!) Today was "pamper Julie" day. I went for a massage and got my hair done. I feel pretty and relaxed and pretty relaxed. I'm ready for the craziness of trying to get everything done now!