Day 9. A Christmas Hymn

Warning! Do Not Read if you go to church with me and are easily offended!  I am serious!

I mean it, I’ll wait, log in to pinterest or something, go on.

I am warning you, snarkiness ensues if you keep reading.

Ok, just those of you hoping for something scandalous are left?  Typical.

It isn’t so much a scandal as it just gave me the church giggles so bad.  We have a very poised and professional husband and wife music team leading the musical worship at my church.  Every Sunday we sing new and improved versions of the traditional hymns.  Lucky us.

On November 30^th, the first Sunday of advent our church had a big Christmas music program that evening.  Not only does this kick off the advent season in style it has the wholly unintended benefit of freeing up the schedule of the music staff so that they can attend to things much more important during the holiday season.  (A very funny sentence was here, hilarious really, but Kat edited it out.  I ironically used the word y’all and Texas in the same sentence, but Kat says the rest of it was too mean and I listened to her) 

ANYWAY, before I get sidetracked, now that the big music program is over they are not having choir practice again until January.  This basically says to me that they are winging it on Sunday mornings.  This Sunday morning after the choir opened the service with a Christmas hymn it was time to light the advent candles.  The professional pianist played the march of the sugarplum fairies as a church family ascended the stairs and lit the candles and then returned to their seats.  Someone sitting next to me leaned over and asked, “is that the oompa-loompa song?” Then the only thing I could see as this family lit the candle of peace was oompa-loompas climbing up stairs.  SO Wrong!

Then it was time for the congregation to sing.  This was a very special arrangement of a very familiar Christmas hymn.  This arrangement had excerpts from the nutcracker between each verse. (No! Do NOT engage me in a discussion of why the nutcracker music was included in a church service. Nooooooo!)  It could have been borne except the music leader brought the congregation back in to sing the second verse before the pianist, (who was using a keyboard to make it sound like a harpsichord) was finished with the special interlude.  The organist tried to come back in with the melody but the pianist kept going and we got halfway into the verse before the music leader had to stop everyone.

She started us over, from the beginning.  Really it was the only thing to do, except that it gave me the church giggles. Well, not really giggles, more like loud chuckles that I could not suppress.  Then my Paul got up from his seat in the balcony and walked over to me to whisper, ‘that was the BEST part of this morning’s church!’  Then I really couldn’t stop laughing.

I just managed to get composed when someone sitting in the balcony with us asked loudly, “Why can’t we just sing it the regular way?” That was it, I was done.

There really is a reason I sit in the balcony, and it just might be that I am not allowed to sit with the grownups yet.

Do me a favor? Sing a Christmas hymn for me!