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Christmas tree time!

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Calm before the decorating storm...

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Every year for the past five, since Calvin joined the Boychoir, we've seen the performance at the Henry Ford Tree Lighting ceremony, always the Monday before Thanksgiving, as a kick-off, both for the musician's completely insane holiday performance schedule, and for the Christmas season itself. 

So...let the season begin!

Carols at the spinet

Caroling in Christmas Eve Eve, that being December 23, is a family tradition three or four years in the making. We start the party with Christmas craftiness, this year it was baking brownies, last year decorating cookies, and the couple of years before that it was gingerbread structure architecture. Dinner is always a must, with some wine to loosen singing throats, and then we retire to the library to sing around the piano. It was the moving in of Jon's childhood piano that prompted the first party. We pulled out our newsprint song books, things that survived from my own childhood, and some music books from my grandparents' house to get us started, and away we went. This year Calvin played some of the accompaniment.