Christmas is in the Air...

Today is a day full of Christmas celebrations, and every minute has been exciting for me.

Last week, I went into the Music Development Office to pick up the Christmas gift bag that every Adopt-a-Student Scholarship recipient gets.  While I was in there, Scott, the director of the office, said, "Raissa, do you have a church gig for this weekend?"  I didn't.  He said, "Do you want one?"  I did.  He explained to me that it involved one rehearsal and one performance.  I was more than welcome to help.  Then, he said, "Is $125 enough?"  Yes, please!

So yesterday morning, Kenny and I drove down to Golden for a rehearsal with the choir, and then again this morning for the performance.  (I got up at 6:00 am... BLECH!)  Our role was to help fill the sound of the choir so that it could be heard over the full orchestra that was entirely composed of CU music students.  The church has its own choir, we were just beefing them up a bit.

The performance was excellent; we sang for a full house.  And the choir members were really cute old people.  There was one man who always knew the exact page number and yelled it out at the top of his lungs, the very nice lady who sat beside me and told me about her squished boob, and Peaches, the black female tenor who always had a wisecrack at the best possible moment, among others.

After the performance, Kenny and I headed to Denver for the 35th annual "Tuba Christmas."  I had never heard of such a thing, but Kenny had been to one in Aberdeen. Tuba Christmas happens when literally hundreds of brass players: euphonium, tuba, sousaphone, etc., etc., etc. get together and play Christmas carols and hymns arranged for a tuba choir.

It was awesome.  I literally got the goosebumps every 5 seconds, and it wasn't because of the chill in the air.  The performers were everywhere from 8 to 85 years old and included families, friends, and people who had performed in up to 34 Tuba Christmases in Denver alone.  There were about 250 performers, and the conductors were the cutest old men ever.  I can't even describe how cute they were.

I was a little sad that the audience wasn't a bit more excited to be there.  Kenny and I had a great time singing along, which the organizers encouraged, but not many were singing.  In any case, the two of us had a great time.

We had to park pretty far away from the location where Tuba Christmas was held, and I had worn heels.  On the way back to the car, we had to cross several roads.  At one such road, we decided to cross just as the hand started flashing at us not to cross.  I took a step onto the street, then another...  Thn, I suddenly had no shoe.  The heel had wedged itself into a crack on the road, and when I kept walking, I lost my shoe.  So there I was, in the middle of the street in downtown Denver, with only one shoe on my feet, and the hand getting ready to tell us not to walk.  I was laughing so hard I could hardly contain myself, and so was everyone around us.  I finally rescued my shoe and ran across the street.  All I could say was, "I hope everyone who saw that laughed really hard."  

Now, I'm getting ready to head over to my church, ULC, for our Christmas Hymns and Reading service.  Because there will probably be no students here on Christmas, we are celebrating today by singing and reading traditional Christmas Eve stuff.  I'm leading a few hymns, chanting some antiphons, and singing "O Holy Night" for the Recessional.  They are going to record the service and give copies to alumni, so I'm pretty excited about it.

It's finally beginning to feel like Christmas around here...