My Christmas Wish Comes True!

When I was younger, my Mom was in a singing group called the "Sound Singers.”  Every Christmas, they would sing at Retirement homes around the area.  Often, my sisters and I would go along and once in a while, we would even sing a song or play an instrument.  It was a neat experience.  When I got married and started having kids, and I realized how much we all enjoyed singing together, I started dreaming that someday, we would work up a program and go sing it at Retirement homes in the community.  Every Christmas, for the last 13 years, I have been pregnant or had a little baby.  Finally, this year, I decided we would finally do it!

In October, I had the girls each pick a song that they enjoyed and wanted to work on, to perform as a solo.  They each picked one and we worked on them for 2 months.  When December came, everyone kept getting sick.  I was so frustrated!!  I really wanted to be able to go and sing.  I finally prayed and said that all I wanted for Christmas this year was for all of us to be well enough to go sing.  Then miraculously, everyone who was sick became well enough and no one else got sick.  We were able to go sing at 4 places in one day.

Our Performance consisted of:

1-   Grant and I sang a duet, “Star Bright,” a Spanish Christmas song.

2-   The girls danced to a “Snowman Medley,” which they helped me make up the choreography for.  It was so adorable and the residents absolutely loved it!  And oh my goodness, Calyssa was so stinkin cute on this one!  She watched her sisters and did everything they were doing... with no fear at all!!  She was so cute!!

3-  Then I sang a solo, "The Christmas Waltz," which was one of my favorite songs that the "Sound Singers" used to sing.

4-   Next was Riana singing a solo, “What Child Is This.”  (Each of the girls also announced the song that they were singing a solo on and Grant and I took turns announcing the others.)

5-   Then Sariah singing a solo, “Silver Bells” (They loved this one too because they all recognized it.)

6-  Next, was “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” starting with a solo by Tierra and then the second time through was all the girls.

7-  Then “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” which began with a solo by Karina and the second time through all the girls joined in.  This song was so adorable, especially because she can’t say certain consonants, which made it just that much more adorable!!

8-   The second to last song was Grant’s solo, singing “O Holy Night.”  It was so powerful and brought tears to a lot of eyes.

9-  We concluded with our whole family singing “Silent Night.”  We had everyone join us the second time through. It was a great way to end.

The first place we went was called “The Hampton” and was recommended to us by our friend, Judy, because her Dad was there.  It was actually my favorite place.  The staff was so sweet to us.  They were thrilled to have our family there.  They brought dolls for the girls to play with when they weren’t singing and gave them candy canes and chocolate kisses.  A couple of the nursing staff, including a big tough guy in the back was totally crying by the end.  It was so cute!  The younger two girls had a hard time warming up at this first place, but were fine after they realized it was okay.  The lady that helped us even took pictures of our family.  Later, she asked if we could walk through the halls and sing, and so we did that too. 

After the first performance, we had a little extra time, so we decided to take the girls out for a special lunch at Red Lobster.  They behaved like perfect little angels the whole time!  Everyone commented on our beautiful family and that they were so well behaved.  We were proud of our girls and it was so nice to enjoy this special lunch together.

The second place was called, “Garden Courte” and they were super sweet too!  They “ooo”ed and “aww”ed through our entire performance. (They also gave the kids candy!)  Aurora and Calyssa were feeling totally comfortable at this place, a little bit too much, in fact.  Calyssa decided she was going to crawl around and act like a doggy, which she did almost the entire time and Aurora decided she would join in too.  The residents thought it was so cute, so we just allowed them to keep going.  After we were done, they all wanted us to keep going, but we told them that we hope to be back next year!

The last two places were both at Panarama- 1^st in the Convalescent Center, where we were even asked to sing “Happy Birthday” to one guy.  Also there was a super friendly lady who was super friendly and wanted to be really close… LOL!  There was also a cute old guy named Grant.  I couldn't help but think what a cute oldie my Grant is going to be!  J  2^nd- was for Assisted Living, where the residents were way more high functioning.  That was fun!  We had to wait a bit, so the girls enjoyed watching some birds they had there.  Then Aurora and Calyssa took turns singing songs (like Twinkle Twinkle and such) on the microphone, while we waited.  The residents loved every second of these little ones.  We heard such fun comments like “Oh my goodness!  I haven’t seen a kid in years” and referring to Callie said, “I didn't remember that they even came that small.”  LOL!!  Cute!  We had a lot of fun performing for this last group and even ran into our friend Jeff, who works there.  (I also talked to our friend, Howard, when I was trying to make the appointments here and he was very helpful.)  He told us that his office was just around the corner from where we were singing.

I was so thankful that we were finally able to fulfill this dream of mine.  We had such an amazing time building these special memories as a family and we are hoping to make it an annual tradition (and maybe even add a springtime show.)  I really feel that our kids were able to bring a lot of joy to these people and that makes me so happy!  It also brought me a lot of joy and fulfilled my Christmas wish!!  J