The kids' school choir had their annual holiday concert Wednesday night. Most of the songs celebrated the seasonal traditions of Christmas: gifts, snow (well, seasonal elsewhere), Christmas trees, wishes for peace, etc. But there were also a couple of token Hanukkah and Kwanzaa songs, and one with explicitly religious Christian lyrics in Latin ("venite adoremus dominum"). I don't have a high opinion of the whole "war on Christmas" political mess, in which we are either supposed to insult Christians by avoiding any talk of Christmas in favor of more generic "holidays", or supposed to insult everybody else by pushing Christmas into their faces all month in all facets of commerce and politics. The choice of songs here was, I think, a happy medium between these positions, acknowledging Christmas in all its meanings but also celebrating our diversity.

Anyway, the concert, and photos therefrom. It was standing room only in the school multipurpose room; last year we were in a local church, a little larger and more suitable for this kind of performance. Several of the kids gave excellent solos and small-ensemble performances, including Betsy (below left), the daughter of one of my colleagues. My daughter Sara was only in the Middle School Vocal Ensemble and the combined chorus from all the upper grades, as rehearsals for the school musical prevented her from having time to work on the other songs at this concert, but I was very pleasantly surprised by their performance of the song Believe (from The Polar Express) — I hadn't seen that movie, and I wouldn't have expected a movie song to work so well for a school choir. I also especially liked their performance of Dona Nobis Pacem (set to a Bach prelude).

Photos in the gallery as usual. Thumbnails: