What a joyous time of the year!
On Thursday this week, my mom and I went downtown to try for standby tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. We didn't get tickets, but we got to watch the broadcast in the Tabernacle, which is just fine by me--in fact, the Tabernacle is more historic and iconic.
Since 2007, the Choir has released CD albums of their Christmas concert from the previous year. I have collected all of these, and some of them are wonderful. But their guests for 2011, 2012, and 2013 were all opera singers. But no one likes opera! The only people who like opera are people who were told they should like it. And last year's guest, Deborah Voigt, is the most opera-y, horrible of them all. I only got the CD to keep my collection complete. Her singing is terrible.
Therefore, I was delighted that this year's guest was not another opera singer. The singing guest was Santino Fontana, who was Prince Hans in Frozen. But he didn't sing any Frozen songs because he doesn't want to be remembered as a villain. I thought he was a little bit hammy, but he was good--especially compared to opera.
The main charm, however, was the Sesame Street characters. I was so glad that they didn't take themselves so seriously that they had such beloved characters. They had Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, Count Von Count, Cookie Monster, Grover, Elmo, Rosita, and Abby Cadabby (who was not a Sesame Street character when I was a kid). I was disappointed they didn't have Oscar the Grouch, but oh well. It was just so charming. My eye literally teared up a little because I was so happy the MoTab/Sesame Street mashup happened. I loved the Count helping with the organ solo of the Twelve Days of Christmas.
However, it was more of a performance than a concert, so I'm not sure how well it will work as a music CD next year. But I'm so glad I got to see it. I haven't been to one of their concerts since 2005, when they had another terrible opera singer, Renee Fleming. Of course, I'm not sure this year counts as getting to go, since I only watched it from the Tabernacle.
As I've been listening to Christmas music, I have noticed just how bad the lyrics to "The First Noel" are. Seriously. I have thought and thought about those lyrics, and have tried to grammatically parse them, but I just don't get it! Does it mean "The angels did say that the first Noel" or "The first Noel that the angels did say was to..." Regardless, it still doesn't make sense. The first Christmas was to shepherds? It makes zero. sense. And "a cold winter's night that was so deep"? What does that even mean? The tune is pretty and makes me feel Christmassy, but the lyrics are pure garbage. "Once in Royal David's City" and "It Came upon a Midnight Clear" have better words.
Yesterday, we finally got our artificial ten-foot tree up. The Christmas season got off to a slow start for us, since we were out of town for Thanksgiving. But yesterday I also put up a six-foot tree in our basement, a five-foot tree in my bedroom, and a three-foot pink tree in our TV room. It is fun to do those things.
Sometimes I worry I won't get all the things done for Christmas that I want. But this week I read a Christmas talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf in which he likens those things to Jenga--we have these ideas about all these things and where they should go, but when they aren't right, everything comes crashing down and we are disappointed. But we shouldn't let those things disappoint us, because that makes us miss the essence of Christmas.
Happy Holidays! (You see, I said that, and I still celebrate Christmas. If you got offended, you are a rotten person.)
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