Christmas Carols

Saturday evening we had a party for… well, I think it was basically for people who know Irene Bosma (former star piano/voice student at TKUC, now a part-time instructor here and a full-time MMus student at the U of A. I have no idea how her GPA stays so much higher than mine.) (Hello, Irene!)

Naturally, we went caroling. In years past we’ve gone to homes for the aged, but this year Irene doesn’t live close to any of those, and we didn’t really want to sing for the requisite two hours anyway. (Some of us have important exams to study for, and those aged persons are insistent.)

I’m not sure why, but it seems that some people don’t enjoy Christmas Caroling: Half of the partygoers remained at the house while the rest of us prowled the streets looking for targets to assault with our jubilation. At a balmy –2° Centigrade, and with minimal wind, weather was a non-issue. There’s a chance that the non-singers were hiding some sort of sectret snack from us, but with the chocolate cheesecake / crunchy cookies / simmering cider / etc that was still there when we returned, I can’t think of anything I could have missed out on. (Except, perhaps, eggnog. Sadly, I didn’t have time to pick up another carton before the party.) In any case, we got fresh gingerbread cookies from one generous house we sang at, and another party invited us to partake in their yuletide feast. The people who stayed inside were the ones who missed out.

In total, we sang for approximately a dozen houses in forty-five minutes. One person closed the door on us; one or two weren’t brave enough to open the storm doors (though with the price of natural gas that’s understandable); two Christmas parties (including the aforementioned feast and a another involving nifty red paper hats) came to the door to hear us; and we skipped one house on account of the rottweiler in the window. (I was certain that he was a friendly rottweiler, and he looked happy to see me when I got closer to the window, but the girls insisted on a hasty retreat.)

Overall the event seemed like a success, but the lady who was insisted that we were “collecting for something,” along those who stayed behind, have convinced me that caroling is not as “normal” as I once believed.



Is Christmas Caroling still socially acceptable?
Yes! And we still want figgy pudding!
No! Go back indoors and leave me alone!
Eggnog for the win!
  
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Christmas caroling is great, it is fun and a nice thing to do for people. It brings people cheer for the holidays.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the awesome run-down on sat evening - though, to correct you, I'm doing my MMus, not MFA. . . minor detail, and I don't know how my average is higher than yours either. . . a total mystery in my opinion. Though yours is probably just as high as mine. Maybe music classes are easier than English. . . And I agree with the previous commenter, and with you that Christmas Caroling is great, and does bring Christmas Cheer :)

Jack said...

Kim: yes, it was fun. Does your family do any caroling?

Irene:
Whoops, you're right. I knew I would goof something up when I retyped that. (I lost the whole post after I changed the poll this morning...)
As far as academic competitions are concerned, I'm glad I never had to compete with you directly; I would have gone stark raving mad.

Have fun with exams!