This week is our "special music service." It's not really a cantata or a lessons & carols service, but their is going to be lots of special music for the choir and the congregation.
The title of the music portion of the service is "Welcome Home for Christmas, Family Sing-a-longs." I got my inspiration from our slogan for our anniversary year; "St. Andrew's welcomes you home, celebrating 160 years in Hespeler." The obvious connection to Christmas for me was coming home for Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus with your loved ones. What is a musical thing families do around Christmas? Sing-a-longs!
Honestly, overall my family isn't particularly musical, especially not my mom, so that wasn't a part of our tradition, but I did attend a Christmas sing-a-long at a close family friend's house one year. I drew my inspiration from that. There was someone plunking away at the piano, someone strumming the guitar, and someone attempting to fiddle. It was warm and wonderful and fun. What a great way to celebrate the birth of Jesus, by lifting our voices in song. I wanted to re-create that at St. Andrew's so we have Richard L'Abbe, guitar, and Shane Guse, fiddle, joining us. They are both very talented and I think they are going to blow us away.
So, family sing-a-longs, generally the pieces are shouted out and then you run with it. This would of course be chaos in a service and while I can arrange music quickly, it still takes a minimum of an hour to get an arrangement on to paper. So since that option doesn't work for us, I polled people on Facebook. I chose my songs from what they said were standards in their Christmas sing-a-longs. Because of this, not all of the songs are "sacred."
I'm going to take a second to state that I believe all music is sacred. This of course does not mean that all music is appropriate for church. However, if something is in honour of God and is logical (ie. meaningful) then why not use it to praise God? To celebrate the birth of Jesus?
Ultimately, some of my choices are unconventional - Jingle Bells, The Christmas Song, I'll Be Home for Christmas, but they can absolutely be used to celebrate God and the birth of Christ.
Practically speaking, there are five sets. Each set contains an anthem (generally sung by the choir) and a hymn for the congregation to sing.
I'm so proud of the work that the choir has done for this service. They continue to grow and please tell them what a great job they are doing.
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