Accordions can be FUN!

If you missed this year's Living Christmas Tree you missed - as far as I know - the very first appearance of accordions in "the Tree." I may be wrong, but surely someone would have said, "Oh! Accordions? In the Tree? We've done that before..."

 

Brothers Tim and Terry brought out accordions in the middle of the program!

 

 

 

Bro. Terry helped me with getting one on.

 

I'll see if Perry can get us a video of our song for me to add to this post!

 

(As always, you can click on a picture to see a larger version of it.)

 

 

 

I mentioned one night that my son has an accordion. It was his accordion that I was using!

 (Yes, I knew about it before hand.)

 

Here's Andrew with his accordion. His father-in-law is Swiss and plays the accordion.

How cool is that?

 

And now his son, Elam has an accordion. He got one for Christmas!

 

The grandfather in me couldn't resist putting up a picture of one of my grandbabies!

 

Here's a little accordion music for you.

What could be better than "Amazing Grace" on an accordion?

 

 

 

 

Dreaming of a White Christmas

If you click this picture it will open up in a larger size - Perfect for copying and using as a poster to invite family and friends.

Billboards Going Up Next Week

And here you get a sneak preview!

Ooooo. Aint it purty?

Watch The Living Christmas Tree - Journey to the Manger

http://www.hilldale.org/media/video/wmx/LCT121408-1.asx

A HUGE Thank You to Chuck for his great switching and editing and to all of the media crew - camera men, sound men, light men, etc.

You all are the BEST!

Wonderful!

I would like to go on and on about last weekend's performances of Journey to the Manger.

After awhile you run out of superlatives. You can rhyme - super duper. (or as Bro. Paul said, "You're the boss applesauce."

You can alliterate - practically perfect production, marvelously magnificent mesmerizing music making.

You can make up words - fantasmagorically whoopsidoodled performances. (but then it sounds a bit Suessish)

But what I really want to say is rather simple. The whole weekend was wonderful! Every part of it. Thanks.

The Lady in Red

I've been the Worship Pastor/Minister of Music at many churches over the years. And I've seen Christmas programs on TV and on DVDs from many more churches. In all of these productions, Mary was dressed in blue. I just figured blue was her color. (Is Mary "Winter?" Hahaha! Remember that back in the early 90s when the ladies had those parties and they found out which season of the year their skin was and then they bought clothes and makeup that went with their season?)

Sorry, chased a rabbit.

Here are some famous paintings through the centuries with Mary in red. In some that I didn't choose she was in blue and one she was wearing black (ugh). But since they didn't support my argument of Mary in red I left them out.

I found these cool old paintings here.

http://www.christmas-worldwide.com/art/favourite-nativity-scenes.html

So I found it quite interesting as I looked for a Nativity set to use in Hilldale's Living Christmas Tree - Journey to the Manger and at the Nativities at my house, that in almost every Nativity I found, Mary was wearing RED!

Why would Mary wear red?

So I did a little research. I found two different explanations of Mary wearing red (at least two that seemed to make sense). She also has a blue outer robe.

One is that red is the color of divinity and blue the color of humanity and so Mary with her inner red robe and outer blue represents her in her humanity carrying Christ (divinity).

The second was that red was the color of virgins and blue the color of mothers representing - obviously - the virgin mother.

Whatever the explanation, our Mary is wearing red this year because in the story line the sculptor's figures come to life in his dream. And since the Nativity had Mary in red and blue our Mary is in red and blue.

By the way, Lacey is doing a GREAT job in her roll as Mary. You can see her tonight at 7:00, tomorrow at 7 or Sunday afternoon at 3:00. Come early for a good seat and enjoy some beautiful music. Thirty minutes before each performance we have "pre-tree" music for your enjoyment.

In the News

We had a teaser of an article about the Living Christmas Tree in the Leaf-Chronicle today. Tomorrow there will be a full article.

Here's one quote that I thought was a hoot. Can you guess who they are talking about?
"______________ has been a vocal bulb on a bough of the Living Tree since 1987."
Hahahaha. Which one of you bulbs out there were they bragging on?

http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20081209/NEWS01/81209018

The "Star" of the Show

It's Wednesday, so as usual I'm here blogging - hoping to inspire the faithful, prod the undecided, and inform the masses of all the exciting things happening through the Worship Ministry of Hilldale.

So...... here we go!

Our drama cast is doing great. Last night's rehearsal showed what a great cast we have. Oh, by the way, I've never official announced here (the choir knows) who the leading man is in our little drama.

He's the former collegiate star of such renown shows as "No, No Nannette",

he's on TV every week, he sings, he acts...

It's funny. I "googled" his name to find a picture and here are some of the ones that came up.

So I added "Dr" in front of his name to narrow down the choices and got this picture.

(You don't get quite so many different people when you google "Lyndel Littleton.")

So I asked around the office and found this picture.

You'll want to be sure and tell all of your friends to check out today's blog, because I have a feeling I may have to delete this post when he gets back from visiting the hospital...

So, in case you haven't figured it out by now - or if you are one of our faithful readers from around the world - the star of this year's Living Christmas Tree is our own wonderful pastor, Dr. Larry D. Robertson.

He and Mrs. Beth, his lovely wife, even sing a duet in the program. I hope you are making plans to attend.

Performances are Dec. 12&13 at 7:00 and Dec. 14 at 3:00. Come early to get a good seat!

This post is not what I had in mind when I started, but I've had fun with where it ended up!

SEVEN!!!

Ooooooooooooooooooooo! I hate it when I do some actual looking at the calendar to decide Christmas rehearsals and realize that there are only 7 Wednesdays before “The Tree”!!!! SEVEN!!!!
Oh, it makes my head hurt.

This means that it is VERRRRRRRY important for you all to be in rehearsal this Wednesday night. We will rehearse from 6:25-8:00. We will get a song or two ready for a Sunday morning and then we will sing A LOT of Christmas. The music is not too difficult and vey singable this year, so we have plenty of time, we just need to be as faithful to rehearsals as possible since there are only 7 Wednesdays before “The Tree” (and that includes the Wednesday before Thanksgiving).

I’ll be looking for ALL of you THIS Wednesday night.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Reflections

Hmmm, I'm not sure where to start. I think it is always good to look back at things you have done; see what worked, see what could be done differently next time... those kinds of things. But more importantly I think it is good to reflect on all the great things God was able to do because of our hard work and faithfulness.

Here are some of my thoughts after resting and thinking a day.

*WOW! It was fantastic!

* There are so many people that worked so hard behind the scenes. We should all be very thankful that they have been willing to answer God's call to serve Him here at Hilldale.

*Musically - you all were great, the orchestra was great, the sound was great.

*I am overwhelmed at the number of churches in our area that were represented at the three performances. "The Tree" truly is a city-wide event. That's pretty cool!

*Comments we received were so very kind. I hope you all feel very appreciated.

*It was a lot of work to involve the children and youth in our presentation, but worth it. These are the kinds of memories we need to build into our children so they will 1. realize they are an important part of our church NOW and 2. so they will carry on doing great things for God when we are 130 years old and locked in our rooms.

*I'm thankful for people who stepped in at the last minute to cover areas where others had to back out. They helped make "the Tree" a great success.

*The really awesome thing to see in a presentation like this is how God takes what we do - our hard work, our planning, our rehearsals, etc. - and doesn't just add them all together, He multiplies and makes something grander and more powerful than we could do on our own. Which reminds me of my favorite Bible verse.

Ephesians 3:20-21 20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

What would I do differently?

Hmmm, probably not much.

I guess I might, no, that was good.

Maybe we should... hmm, that was good too.

I thought about... well, now that I think about it, that was great too.

But I definitely need to think twice before going to play racquetball with a star football player twenty years younger than me the day after "the Tree". I'm a bit sore today. But it was worth it.

Here are a few pics I thought you would enjoy.

Pics from our Dress Rehearsal

"Christmastime is here... ring Christmas bells!"

First Time in the Tree

It was fun tonight asking how many of you all were in the tree for the first time. Several raised their hands. It was also very interesting to see how many had sung in the tree all 22 years! Wow! Pretty cool!

So it's 10:45 and my lovely wife, Cheryl, and I just got home. But I promised you pictures , so here there are!