Caroling and a Crisis!

Our church doesn't have Sunday school, we have a community groups--Bible studies that meet in homes. Last night was our Christmas party. At 6:00 about 10 adults and 8 children from our group met at the nursing home to sing Christmas carols, pass out sugar-free candy canes and spread a little Christmas cheer. Had we practiced singing as a group? No. Had we ever actually heard anyone in our group sing? Nope. But it was Christmas carols we’ve known from childhood, how hard could it be?

When we got there, they had moved several of the elderly into the activity room to hear us before they started bingo at 6:15. For musical accompaniment, one of our group members had brought her sons (grades 6 and 8) who have been taking guitar lessons. They knew two songs: “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Silent Night.” We had a CD for “Jingle Bells” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” I had printed out the lyrics for everyone just in case they didn’t know the words to the lesser known verses of the songs.

The boys started strumming and we started singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” You think when a group of voices come together in praise, it’s going to sound good. Not necessarily. We quickly realized that we sounded awful! We were almost all off key, hitting the wrong notes, not together in harmony… it was BAD. The elderly folks just kind of looked at us. After the first song, silence. No applause or anything! One person asked, “What church are ya’ll from?”

We started “Silent Night” and a few residents joined in to either help drown out the noise or maybe they were getting into the spirit a bit. I had a hard time keeping a straight face as I listened to our vocals. I made eye contact with Chris once and we both had to struggle not to crack up. Our hearts were in the right place, but our voices were ALL OVER THE PLACE! We actually got light/polite applause for that one.

On our third song, “Jingle Bells,” we had a CD to accompany us. What we didn’t know was that it was “Jingle Bells: Extended Version.” We sang it over. And over. And over. It was the song that WOULD NOT END. The CD was in their very complicated karaoke machine, so we couldn’t even figure out how to turn it off to put us (and them) out of our misery. Finally, “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” came on the CD. Again, it was the Longest. Version. Ever. We sang it like 92 times. And not just the fun verse everyone knows. There was something about figgy pudding we sang about 30 times.

Finally it was over and we made our embarrassed escape after passing out sugar-free candy canes as payment for putting up with our horrible singing.

We reconvened at our house for the food/fellowship part of the evening. About 30 minutes into that part, a nine-year-old community group kid brought my two-year-old Julia to me. She was crying and saying her arm hurt. Well, that was because while playing with the community group kids from ages 2 to 12, SHE DISLOCATED HER ELBOW. The next thing I know, Chris and I have left about 20 people at our house and are on our way to the ER. A single gentleman in the group volunteered to watch the kids after everyone left and to put my six and eight year olds to bed if we weren’t back. I told them to stay as long as they wanted.

After a really quick trip to the ER and her getting her arm snapped back into place (on the 3rd try! Ouch!), we came home and almost everyone was still there! They were cleaning my kitchen. How sweet is that?

She's fine now. It was the 5th time her elbow popped out of place (loose ligaments in that right arm). It's called "nursemaid's elbow."

My run didn't go very well yesterday, either. Just one of those days I guess.