Sunday 4 December 2011

2nd Pause in Advent 2011

Good afternoon



Well the festive build up has crept up a notch - the biggest thing I've noticed is amount of brass engagements my 2 players have entered onto the calendar. This weekend there have been 3 - fortunately due to sharing them between the other players in their section they've only had to do 2 each. With this in mind, my theme for this weeks pause is Christmas Music;


For my 2 players - Christmas music starts being played the first practise after their Remembrance parade and concert. This means that by December 1st they've played rather a lot of carols plus started practising for their big concert the week before Christmas.

^^^ Those pictures were taken yesterday at the Christmas Fair in town - the band walked through the streets with Father Christmas to draw people to the bottom of the high street where stalls, games and fairground rides awaited them.



Yesterday was a bit chilly and the ground was damp so it didn't feel as festive as some years. Sometimes the ground is frozen and there's a sprinkling of snow;

Christmas 2010

and other years they've struggled through the snow to get to the same engagement at Snape Maltings;

 By the time Christmas Eve comes I think MrVV never wants to hear another carol - not quite the same for Little Son, he's still full of youthful enthusiasm - wonder if he'll feel the same after 30 years of playing (yep MrVV has played in the same band since he was Little Son's age!!).

Do you have a favourite piece of Christmas music? I'm torn between two - Once in Royal Davids City or Hark the Herald Angels Sing. When either of these get played - especially at the open air carol service on Christmas Eve, you'll find me singing along :)

See you later in the week - I've been to the most wonderful Cool Yule Christmas Market this morning with Dawn at Snape Maltings. We've both bought lovely things, had a good catch up over coffee and bumped into another blogger too :)

See you soon

xxx Vicki xxx






13 comments:

Pom Pom said...

Hi Vicki! I love your pictures today! I wish I could hear them!
I love Hark the Herald Angels Sing very much and I also love Angels from the Realms of Glory.
Thank you for a lovely pause!

Unknown said...

Great photos. My favourite Christmas hymn is Silent Night.

Floss said...

I'd love to come and sing along with you! My favourite is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, partly because it had the most wonderful illustration in the carol book I had as a child. Best wishes to your musicians - how busy they are!

Louise said...

My favourite carol is Silent Night, my favourite Christmas song is Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirstie Macoll. Not very original choices I know but they're both fab.

Alijane said...

Lovely pics Vicky. My favourite Christmas carol is In the Bleak Midwinter - I always want to cry when I hear it - not in a sad way but in a moved way - if you get what I mean.

I also love It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.

Alison
x

elegancemaison said...

Lovely photos of your musical boys. So properly celebrating Christmas removed from the rush to spend. Sometimes we get a similar band outside our local Waitrose(!)near Christmas and it is so heartwarming.

My favourite carols are The First Noel, Adeste fidelis, and Il est ne le divin enfant.

xx

millefeuilles said...

Oh this is so wonderfully British! Thank you for that dose of nostalgia! I love music and think it adds so much to our lives to play an instrument. That snowy picture is wonderful.

My eldest daughter put on a beautiful carols CD tonight and we had candles on the dining table.

I love all carols but, yes, I agree that Hark the Herald Angels is one of my favourites (it has a wonderful descant to it) alongside the more melancholy Coventry Carol....

Enjoy Advent!

Unknown said...

What sweet family memories for you and your family! Thank you so much for sharing this for a Pause in Advent. I love Christmas praise and worship music and have so many favorites but my top two are Joy to the World and Angels we Have Heard On High. Both will set me to singing, often at the top of my lungs, as my grandkids will attest to :) Have a blessed week.

You'll find my Pause in Advent at my primary site - SandwichINK.com :)

Jen Walshaw said...

I love brass band music. No favorite carol for me, I love them all

Fat Dormouse said...

I think that my favourite of the "common" carols is Hark the Herald Angels Sing, because the words are, when you ponder on them, so mindblowing.
I also love a carol called "Three Kings From Persian Lands Afar" which is beautiful, and reminds me of carol services at school. Here is a link to it on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKzs9jySpeo)

Unknown said...

Brass bands and Christmas Carols are so wonderfully evocative.

It was lovely to meet you at the market yesterday, it was such a good one, the same organisers are behind the forthcoming Woodbridge Market on Saturday so it should be a good one too.

Pomona said...

My daughter is in a choir, as well as playing in a flute group, so there is a lot of travelling about to listen to carols happening in this house too!

Pomona x

Kit said...

Oh such a lovely tradition! I would just love to see them play. We have something called a Tuba Christmas that performs each year in our mall. So lovely! Kit