I was missing last week so I picked up all the lovely new Christmas lyrics and took my seat. There were 1000 songs to get through including 2 new song sheets that were not available last week.
Skipping the warm-up we began with KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE. This song needs people to remember when to go up and when to go down at the end of a line. It all depends on whether you sing ‘The game’ next or not. He tested us without any backing track.
We sang SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW first without the lead and then with because we are supposed to me Lilly Allen not Keane!
A change of pace we flipped to WOMBLING MERRY CHRISTMAS and all the feet were tapping in the hall.
Time to flex our pelvic floors for O HOLY NIGHT. We need a lot of support and all the ends of the words need to be present. Don’t peek too soon, said Ed.
Into the booklets we dived to begin with WINTER WONDERLAND. It has that tricky ending, where we need to slow down and dramatically change key.
Next LET IT SNOW … extra lyrics to scribble in at the end there …
IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR so we sang about that too.
Ed ran around handing out missing song sheets and we galloped into MARY’S BOY CHILD! There was barely time to chat. It was the extended version which I don’t think we have sang outside of a medley or a bit of a Segway.
Sticking with Mary, Ed slipped behind the piano forte to play MARY DID YOU KNOW? Ed taught us a sweet little fancy ending.
Whooo hooo ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE filled the hall. I wasn’t sure if I knew THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL. Listening to the backing track I was sure that I indeed I did not. But Ed said some of it was sung by dear Dolly.
We stood to perform HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING and then swirled out into the night like happy Christmas snowflakes.
Eds Microphone died before the end of the evening but no matter. Keep singing and keep smiling xxx
