Mormontarian Christmas

I'm Joseph, but you knew that. Add Mac and Janice and you get the singing group Trillium (after the little woodland flower with three petals). Add Heather and you get Dogwood (because dogwood blossoms have 4 petals, geddit?). Add Jack and Jan and maybe others and you get Jellybeans because we're a mixed but flavorful lot. Add Mac & Janice's neighbors Kaylene & Richard and their friends and you get The Mormontarian Choir, famous in two congregations througout Northern Idaho.

Now that you know the players, you can know we had a great little sing last night, 9 voices in all. We sang lots of old favorites in 4-part a capella yumminess, including Angels We Have Heard On High, because it can't be Christmas without a few Excelsis Deos after all. My favorite was an even-more-haunting than usual arrangement of I Wonder As I Wander. Wow. Singing in the soprano section was Beth, Richard & Kaylenes daughter, a sophomore in high school. Beth not only did a passable job sight-reading the parts but, on a latin piece (Gaudete) asked, "are we using Italian or classic pronunciation?" thereby giving me hope for future generations. We'll all be doing a gig at the nursing home next week.

I shared the story of Jamie's "movie about us." Young Beth observed that, since it was dark outside, Jamie was probably seeing the reflection of herself and mommy in the car's windows, and it looked a lot like a movie on the TV. But of course! Less profound but still pretty darn cute.