Our three Christmas concerts were this past Saturday and Monday. Yes, I am biased, but they were truly fantastic!! That is not to say that they were perfect, but pretty close. I ended up having 22 people come out to listen to the choir. About half had never heard the choir before and were blown away. One of them said: I am in love with your choir. Another commented that the choir was incredible. One critical newcomer commented to his neighbour after the first song: you're right, they ARE good! Pentti even came, although he doesn't like concerts, and admitted that it was very good.
I was so excited to sing for so many of my friends, but also proud of how hard we had worked. We put in a lot of hours of practice and I think it was evident in the level of our preparedness. I was happy to have people come and be shocked. I loved seeing the reaction of one of my friends when we started singing; her jaw literally dropped, haha.
We also had fun with the choir members before, during and after the concerts. We spent a lot of time together. Saturday was a nine hour day. It was exhausting, but we had time to play card games and chat and go for dinner. I am really glad that I was in the choir in those years before COVID because back then we used to have a choir weekend retreat in Whistler and more social events. So, I got to know people pretty well. A lot of those same people are still in the choir so it feels like family. Maybe new people are able to feel that too and form bonds quickly, but that's hard for me. So, I feel fortunate that although this is my first year back, it is in fact my fourth year with a lot of the same people. What a joy to share the love of singing, the message of hope and the willingness to put in the effort to do it really well!!
