Christmas in July (or just after July)

I celebrate Christmas all year. I will burst into "Let it Snow" any season. If your Christmas gift is late, I'll still accept it. I also sing in the choir at my church, and for us, Christmas starts now.

Today, I returned to choir practice after a prolonged absence. Summer scheduling is so fluid and unpredictable. I can't remember the last time I actually came to rehearsal. One week we were scoping out colleges, one week we had company, one week I attended a party, one week it was my mother's birthday, etc. But today, I specifically kept Wednesday night open because I knew...

Tonight, Christmas began.

We only glanced at a few songs, but I am so incredibly excited. I live for this stuff. This is one of my deepest joys in life: singing Christmas songs.

It also made me really nostalgic. One of the songs we looked at was a sort of medley. Pachelbel's canon acts as a motif throughout the song, and Michael W. Smith's song "Emmanuel" is threaded in there too. I grew up on this stuff! This is my heritage, my childhood! My sister and I would fall asleep at night listening to an arrangement of Pachelbel's canon. And during the fall, we would wake up to a bustling mother, doors and windows flung open to admit the smells of a perfect Floridian fall day, and Michael W. Smith sounding through the speakers of our bulky black cd player.

This song thrills me, and awakens that little girl who is so often silenced. Work, school, college: there is no place for her there. But she perks up for the little things: a song, a Disney movie she loved, the first chill of winter in the air. Those things stir her still.

However, it is the teenaged-girl she became who was ecstatic to learn that this year, her church choir of stiff southern-baptists would be singing a Christmas song by her all-time favorite band and constant inspiration, Barlowgirl!

I couldn't help myself. I was sorting greedily through all the new music, and paused when I saw the title, "Hallelujah, Light Has Come". It sounded familiar, so I pulled it out and then released a choked yet obnoxiously loud gasp. I knew this song!

I was disappointed that we didn't get our practice cd's this week: I think I would've stayed up all night listening to them all and picking out favorites. But I guess that can wait until next week.