Here We Come A Wassailing....

Short Version:

2 years ago, our family walked across the street and Christmas Caroled to our neighbor. One and done.

1 year ago, our good friends, The Corbetts, joined us on vocals and mandolin as we serenaded 7 or 8 homes in the lower part of our neighborhood. We sang a tune or two to each house...many of which were very surprised and blessed by our gift of song.

This year....
14 of us went out to spread some Christmas Cheer to the Michael Lane/Wayne Ave. area of Dudley, MA.

We recently began attending a new church and have quickly become connected with some wonderful families.....families who love The Lord, and love each other...families that want to do right, honor Him, live and learn by His Bible alone, and enjoy time with one another. Tonight pretty much hit all of those points.

It was a great night for caroling....48 degrees...not too cold for folks to hold their doors open to listen to a song or two.
We went out with a pretty basic 3 song setlist:
1. Jingle Bells (we had 4 kids under 5 years old...they had a good time jingling bells and laughing all the way)
2. Hark The Herald Angels Sing: We HAD to add something about Christ in our set. Plus....I always get all rev'd up at the "Join The Triumph Of The Skies" part.
3. We Wish You a Merry Christmas...just a classic wassailing set-ender.

Our first practice was also our first caroling stop...the deck of my parents home....a dress rehearsal, if-you-will.

A little blurred with no flash but....you get the idea.

After that...we hit maybe 12 or 15 houses in our neighborhood. It's kind of funny....When you knock on some one's door unexpectedly in the night and then burst into song on their front lawn....our culture isn't used to that. So, usually, the first song is spent with the homeowners trying to pry family members away from the TV to come and listen and/or keeping their dogs from jumping through the glass storm door and tearing us to shreds. I will say that, by the middle of the second tune...every family we visited was on board and singing along. We even brought one woman to tears. Booya.
here's some random shots of us on the road:






We nominated Timmy Nault as our official caroling photographer...so...while He wasn't in most of our actual caroling shots...we had to pay him his due (complete with his kind-of-creepy, kind-of-cool fur hat):

Trust me...he's cool.

We even had a "Drive-by" caroling occur when a van that was driving down the street stopped to see what was going on...they got jumped with an unexpected "Jingle Bells" before they sped on their way.

Our night ended back at our home with delicious Hot Chocolate, tasty Winter Brews, lots more music, and lots more laughter. Easy....Simple....Perfect.

When I started facilitating drum circles years ago, I read and recited a quote from and African drum instructor, Babatunde Olatunji, who said :
"All people, from all walks of life, all colors, we have things that we can do together, and it's the simplest thing to make music and sing together..."

Add to that Psalm 147:1:
"Praise the Lord. How good it is to sing praises to our God, how pleasant and fitting to praise Him".

It was wonderful to bless our neighborhood with song this evening. It was even better to honor the Lord through good, happy, pure times of rejoicing this precious season with friends and family.
I am grateful for my friends, old and new, that I shared this night with. I am more grateful to celebrate the season...and to have honored The Lord...the Creator...who clothed Himself in His own creation...who came to us...and came to love, know, teach, guide, and inspire us.
I would love nothing more than to go back in time, to "join the triumph of the skies" and proclaim our Saviour's arrival with the angelic hosts.

Tonight may be as close as I'll ever get.

I'll take it.