So how was your Christmas program?

[PaloAltoCougar]

Our ward’s Christmas program included multiple selections by a bell choir (which was really good), the ward choir of which I was a member (and which was not so good), and a guitarist (who wore sunglasses for the Jose Feliciano look but did not sing Feliz Navidad), interspersed with Hallmark card messages. One of the ward choir numbers was “I Love the Feeling of Christmas” which was apparently lifted from the Lawrence Welk playbook. A schmaltzy number in ¾ time, it had my visiting daughter (Parrothead’s wife) and my inactive sister swaying back and forth on the back row, causing me to lose it during my otherwise stellar performance. Jose Wannabe sang an Amy Grant number while strumming along. My sister asked later, “So when did the Church go evangelical? Is this a result of the Prop. 8 alliance?” Despite my acerbic observations, I enjoyed the program and really like the new ward.

[creekster]

My ward had a program that consisted of 5 choir numbers, 2 congregational hymns, one instrumental duet, one women's ensemble and one Young women's ensemble. All of these were focused on Christmas. Between each of the numbers three narrators read various scriptures (from all of the standard works) that discussed the advent. The meeting ended with a simple but as it turned out rather moving testimony by a new mother of the divinty of the savior's mission from her perspective as a young mother.

I thought it was a great meeting. Every year we have a music centered sacrament the Sunday before Christmas.

[UtahDan]

This is rumor only because I was returning my brother in law to a bus station in D.C., but I understand that ours was the most awful ever. We did a simplified version of the Messiah which even in simplified form is light years beyond the abilities of our ward choir, particularly given the time available to practice. Apparently this was a vehicle for the relief society president's son in law, who is allegedly a wonderful singer and who was going to be in town, to sing a particular solo. Reports are that it was a disaster and that even the soloist sounded very out of place. I wish I had been there. On the other hand I can't always control my inappropriate laughter.

[beelzebabette]

Only song that caught my attention was the women's chorus standing directly behind me (I agreed to be a reader, and afterward I had at least ten people stop me to compliment me on the job I did--everyone of which received some variant of the yes-I-have-mad-reading-off-a-piece-of-paper-skills reply) where one member sang the entire number off-key so the other three vacillated among do-we-sing-equally-flat-so-we-have-some-semblance-of-harmony, let's-try-singing-a-bit-sharp-to-see-it-cancels-her-out, and let's-sing-really-loud-to-try-to-drown-her-out. Otherwise, pretty incident free. The primary's number was a highlight for me--even if they weren't cute when they sing, I love watching them jockeying for position on the stand.

Best part of the Christmas program was when it became apparent Sacrament Meeting was ending fifteen minutes early, at which point I'm sure anyone in the congregation with any lip-reading skills could decipher the "Merry Christmas to me" as I drew the person next to me's attention to the clock.

[Brian]

we had a very nice choir performance w/ reading. 'What Child is This' and 'O Holy Night', my two favorites were featured. My wife at the piano enhanced the enjoyment.
We have a small choir of modest talents, but the director chose a program that was suited to their strengths. A very, very nice program.

Someone gave a talk afterword. He should have said 'Amen' and sat down. He rambled for a while about something and I moved onto looking at my lesson for 3rd hour.

[myboynoah]

We had a nice program, musical numbers followed by readings by a local radio celebrity (as long has he is in the ward, he has the job). Two flute numbers, some solos, choir pieces, congregation pieces, and then kind of a dueling banjos piece between the organ and piano.

All the talent was fairly marginal, but that doesn't matter to me.

[YOhio]

Our program was awesome. A bunch of people sang a lot of Christmas sounding stuff and it went over a 45 minutes so Sunday School was basically canceled.

[bluegoose]

We had a nice program, in spite of one of the speakers. There were 4 musical numbers, most of which were very good. The highlight was our missionary (who happens to be from Memphis and is a music major at BYU) singing "O Holy Night". He has a strong tenor voice and was able to pull it off very well, something I cannot say about everyone who has sung that one in the past.

I actually spoke and chose to speak on the topic "Silent Night, Holy Night" ("Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht" for you Germans). When my 5 year old daughter heard me speaking she excitedly asked my wife if we were going to sing Silent Night, which happened to be the closing song. When the song started she stood up on the pew and did the song in sign language. It was very cute.

[Babs]

Do you guys not have Christmas Eve or Christmas Day services?

[YOhio]

Do you guys not have Christmas Eve or Christmas Day services?

Yes but we're instructed not to publicly discuss.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Ours was boring. Which is a shame since they usually do a bang-up job.

[Surfah]

Mine consisted of a healthy dose of CUF and playing dominoes on Yahoo! Games.

[pelagius]

Mine consisted of a healthy dose of CUF and playing dominoes on Yahoo! Games.

Mine was the flight back from Vegas so it mostly consisted of watching Iron Man.

[LiveCoug]

If your ward did not have a dude who thinks he can sing, but can't, sing Oh Holy Night, raise your hand!

[Babs]

Yes but we're instructed not to publicly discuss.

uh huh. Don't want word to get out about those squirrel sacrifices?

Our lesson was great yesterday, but it wasn't a Christmas program. That won't be 'til Wednesday.