As Sunday school director, Susan created a Christmas program that doubled as a church service. The hand bell choir (of which Suzanna is a member) played before church, the adult choir sang during church, and one of the pastors closed the service; but otherwise the children themselves led the service. Each grade as a group read a verse of an alphabet poem (e.g., "A is for angel . . . "), and after so many verses, they paused to sing a Christmas song. A few older kids served as narrators, reading Bible verses in between songs and verses of the poem. Even the children's choirs of which the girls are members sang a few songs (in addition to the whole-group songs sung by all the Sunday school children). [Compare last year's version of a Sunday school Christmas program, held before Susan was hired as Sunday school director.]
From my video collection, I have chosen to share one of Hillary's children's choir songs in which she plays the xylophone. I'm also sharing samples of Bible verse reading by Suzanna and Abigail, who were two of the narrators.
"Is Your Heart Prepared for a King?"
Last year, Mrs. Vold (the girls' piano teacher) held a Christmas "musical get-together" at the home of one of her piano students, and it got pretty crowded. Therefore this year she held it at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, where her husband is pastor and where there was plenty of room for seating in the pews and eating in the fellowship hall (B.Y.O. Christmas baking to share). It was, again, definitely not a secular "holiday" program; one of her students put on his shepherd costume and told snippets of the Bible story of Jesus' birth in between songs by the students, and many of the songs were religious Christmas songs.
All of Mrs. Vold's students were involved somehow, many playing solos and several playing in numbers with their family members. For example, one little girl played a duet with her mom and another with her dad; one daughter and mom played a duet while the father sang/spoke the lyrics to the song ("Silver Bells") and the grandma rang a bell during the chorus; and the adults in one family sang while the child played the piano accompaniment.
Abigail and Suzanna each played a piano solo, but Hillary was involved, too, in the Moberg family performance of "Deck the Halls" with the three girls on the piano, Susan on the flute, and me on the trombone! I videotaped the girls' solos, but with all of us performing in the group number, I couldn't videotape that until we got home. Enjoy!
"Shimmering Waters" performed by Abigail
"Deck the Halls" performed by Hillary, Suzanna, and Abigail (on camera) and Susan and Kevin (off camera)
I think this year's song was harder for me to play than last year's -- I'm guessing the additional year of not touching my flute (after a span of about 15 years of not touching my flute...) might have something to do with that -- but it is fun to have all of us performing together.
ReplyDeleteWow~! It's too bad Abigail couldn't enjoy herself a little bit more while playing! (bobbing )her head to the beat!) Loved it! The song should have been longer....I could hardly hear Kevin and Susan. :(
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