Yesterday we spent the day with my family for our Christmas celebration. Since Christmas came on Sunday this year and since there are several pastors in the family who live several hours apart, it wasn't possible to get everyone together on Christmas Day this year. Instead, we decided to wait until the Thursday after Christmas to get together. Besides the food and presents, the highlight of our family's Christmas is to sing from Handel's Messiah.
My family has been singing the Messiah since I was ten years old. My mom taught us to sing "For Unto Us a Child is Born" for our church's Christmas Eve service that year. My mom sang soprano, my dad sang bass, I sang tenor, and my younger sister sang alto. It was a hit, and we've been learning new songs since, adding siblings as they grew old enough to learn the parts. A few years ago we put on a Christmas concert and went to three churches to sing seventeen songs from the Messiah. That was the first year that all of my siblings (plus one sister-in-law) sang together.
I have had such wonderful times singing with my family. I sang in several other choirs when I was growing up such as homeschool choir, church choir, and the 4-H chorus, but singing with my parents and siblings will always be something I cherish. So yesterday, after the food and before the presents, my mom passed around the books and popped in the accompaniment CD, and we sang until we were hoarse.
I wanted to share this video of one of the songs we sang yesterday called "And the Glory of the Lord." In this video, my parents, siblings, husband, in-laws, future in-laws, children, nieces, and nephews are all crowded into the living room at my parents' house. We are packed so tightly in there that many have to sit on the floor, but nobody minds. Not everybody sings, but anyone who wants to is welcome to join in. We are a close-knit family who loves to be together and to sing together, and even though we haven't sang together since last Christmas, we still know how to make beautiful music together as we worship God. After all, what would Christmas be without the Messiah?
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