Merry Christmas To All

...and to all a good night!

YouTube Tuesday: Adestes Fideles

This, of course, is not the same group of boys I saw on Sunday. This clip is from 1977. But I thought it fitting I should pick something by the Choir for this week's music. They're singing "Adestes Fideles," or "O Come, All Ye Faithful" in Latin. They did this at the concert we saw, too, but in a lower key.

The Choir Boys in Concert

Last night we saw the Vienna Boys' Choir in concert. What a special experience that was! The concert was terrific; it was even better than I expected. We got the tickets back in the summer when they first went on sale; they were an early Christmas present from my grandfather, who passed away in September. What makes it even more special is that Grandpa had sung with a school choir in the same concert hall when he was a young boy, and I had the privilege of singing on the same stage with a choir myself last Christmas.

The hall was packed almost full, and the boys sounded just wonderful. The program ranged from old favorites like 'O Fortuna' and 'Tritsch Tratsch Polka' to more contemporary selections like 'I'll Be Home For Christmas' and even 'Jingle Bell Rock'! Since it was the holiday program there was a lot of Christmas music, with carols in many different languages. Having had choir experience I could really appreciate their amazing crescendos and decrescendos, and being a soprano could find it in me to envy just a little bit the apparent ease and effortlessness with which these little boys can hit the highest notes. The conductor, who spoke with an Italian accent, drew an enthusiastic response from the audience after one number by introducing the soloist as "an original New Yorker."

In other news, I'm writing a Christmas story. I didn't plan it; a conversation about weather led to a title suddenly springing into my head, and before I knew it a set of characters presented themselves to me and begged to be written about. So far I've written about 4,000 words. At first I thought it was going to be a short story, but as I wrote I realized that it had a much bigger scope - it'll probably end up being a short novel. I wish I'd been hit this hard by inspiration all through November! Of course, the characters don't always cooperate; at times they absolutely refuse to speak when so ordered. The common term for this is 'writer's block.'

I'd like to finish it before Christmas, but I don't know how realistic that goal is. Anyway, I'll have all next week's vacation to work on it at leisure.

Holiday Activity

Today my youngest sister remarked meditatively upon watching a V-shaped formation of geese crossing the sky, "Too bad geese can't fly in a D or an M or an N."

Too good not to share. I wish I could remember all the times we've delighted in quaint sayings from the younger members of the family. Certain ones, though, are indelibly imprinted on our memory and are always brought up and laughed over again whenever we're in a reminiscent mood. (I was responsible for my fair share back in the day.)

All the usual holiday activities and preparations seem to have come off with exceptional smoothness and enjoyability this year. We kicked it off with Part One in the saga of the search for the perfect Christmas tree. It proved fruitless, but for those who love adventure there's nothing better than tramping around in snowy woods with a scarlet sunset hanging over the hills in the distance. After exhausting the resources of half a dozen tree farms we broke a long precedent and bought a pre-cut tree - but it was still fun, since we went to a local farm that displays them in front of their barns with the old-fashioned lights strung overhead. It was an adventure, too, piling into the cab of a pickup truck borrowed from an uncle to go pick it out - we bought a new car recently after nearly a decade in our faithful minivan, which was on its last legs (or should I say "wheels"?), and we're still in the stage where anything that could possibly scratch the shiny new paint, including bristly Christmas trees, is kept at a minimum of 100 yards distance.

Then came our Christmas card photo-shoot, which instead of being an ordeal undergone with gritted teeth ended up being a blast. We spent part of a morning out in the yard with Mom, our talented family photographer, snapping action shots and posed shots in all directions. We got a little experimental, and the end result was probably the best card we've ever done. We're getting a lot of Christmas cards in the mail this year too, which is so nice, since sending cards seems to have been a fading tradition over the last few years. We always tape them up around the archway to our kitchen, and I can remember times years ago when they went all the way to the floor on both sides.

The last couple days have involved a lot of gift-wrapping and the entry of the tree. I suppose anything would have been smoother than last year's tree-trimming, all things considered. But this year's went as well as you could wish for.

Today it's cold. I filled the bird feeder without gloves on today and by the time I raced inside I couldn't feel my hands. Tonight I'm going grocery shopping with Dad, which will mean bundling up well for that long walk across the parking lot - the new car, of course, must be parked well out of harm's way. I've been enjoying our free trial of satellite radio immensely. They have whole stations devoted to the kind of music I love to listen to - old-time classics by decade, classical pops, different kinds of jazz, movie soundtracks and more. The only thing I can't figure is why with about nine country channels they don't have one devoted to old-time Western music.

Later we'll put the tinsel on the tree...Mom embarks on her gift-wrapping marathon tonight, and for tomorrow I think we have a Christmas movie I've never seen before from Netflix - Christmas In Connecticut. And we have a few more of our own holiday favorites saved up for this week, including A Charlie Brown Christmas and our favorite 1951 Scrooge.

One week until Christmas Eve - the only night of the year when the kids ask, "Can we go to bed yet?"

YouTube Tuesday: Silent Night

A simple and lovely rendition of "Silent Night" from Deanna Durbin.

Christmas With O. Henry

One of my favorite authors is O. Henry, about whose work I wrote a post a while ago. Last night I pulled out my book of his collected short stories to re-read the classic Christmas tale "The Gift of the Magi." Of course I ended up re-reading a few others too! So today I decided to try YouTube for the 1952 short film adaptation of the story - and I found it! Here it is, with the introduction by John Steinbeck:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

It's a lovely little film and a great adaptation of the story. You might not be able to help a sniff or two at the end. Now I want to see the rest of the short films that made up the collection this one comes from.

As a bonus, here is the text of another Christmas favorite by O. Henry. This is one of his Western stories, which he did every bit as superbly as his city ones - "Christmas By Injunction." In this tale, a prospector who's finally struck it rich decides to return to the mining town he helped found and give its children a fabulous Christmas with his new fortune...but there's one slight problem with this scheme, which his friends set out to remedy. It's classic O. Henry all the way, with the humor, the heart, the surprise ending, and all the lively play on words that makes Henry fiction a delight for the language-lover.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Here's another of my guitar arrangements. I got most of this from a piano book of Christmas songs; I transposed it down a few steps for a more comfortable vocal range and tweaked the chords until they sounded right.

Click to enlarge

The parentheses near the end indicate optional alternate chords; I couldn't make up my mind whether they ought to include the 7 or just be minor. Personal taste. I had a hard time with Bm7 chord in general - it just seems like it has a different type of sound than the Dm7 chord in the key I transposed from.

NaNoWriMo Quiz

Nina posted this NaNo quiz and issued an invitation to other novelists to fill it out...it's right up my alley, since I'd been thinking of doing some kind of recap myself.

1. Was 2009 your first NaNo? No, my second.

2. How did you find out about NaNo? I'm not positive, but I think it was through fellow members on the Sense and Sensibility sewing forum. There's usually a thread in the off-topic section for those who NaNo.

3. What made you decide to do NaNo this year? I wanted to do it again for the fun of it, and I also thought it would be good for me because it forces me to write. I have a bad habit of procrastinating on writing anything - I do a lot of note-scribbling and daydreaming about my stories, but unless I'm strongly motivated they seldom reach the page in any coherent form.

4. Did you come into NaNo very prepared (outline, synopsis) or did you choose to wing it? This year I had much more of an outline than usual. Some aspects changed as I went along, but nothing absolutely vital - I knew how the story was going to begin, what the basic plot was and how it would end. It was definitely helpful.

5. What was your original goal for the month? Just the 50K, really! I did think for most of the month that it would be fun to get as far past that as I could, but as it got down to the wire I realized I wouldn't be going over in any significant way.

6. Did you make your goal? Yes. According to the NaNo validator my total was 50,008, but according to Microsoft Word it was 50,322.

7. Did you learn anything through doing NaNo? To quote Jacob Marley, "Much!" I've learned what the weak points of my writing style are, and had some illuminating experiences involving perspective. And through research I accumulated some random and interesting knowledge on such varied things as the general workings of a Winchester rifle, what kind of maple trees are found in Wyoming, how to repair a barbed-wire fence and the treatment for a sprained wrist.

8. Give your novel's title and a one-line synopsis. One line? To me it feels too big to sum up briefly without sounding silly, but I'll try. View of the Valley: An Eastern girl inherits her grandfather's ranch and eventually falls in love with her foreman, but is forced to take another look at everything she knows about him and her new life when he is accused of murdering her grandfather.

9. What will you do with your novel now? Keep on working until I finish it, for one. Then edit it. Then, in fear and trembling, show it to someone. Then probably edit it again. I dream of publication, but that's very far down the road at the moment.

10. What was your daily word goal? I guess I tried to stay close to the average. Some days I didn't come anywhere near and I knew I'd have to make up for it the next day.

11. What was your highest day's word count? I have no idea! I didn't keep a day-by-day record.

12. Did you write any time you could, or did you have a more structured, set time for writing? I would have liked to be more structured, but it didn't turn out that way. I ended up snatching bits of time whenever I could, with the majority of my writing hours coming at night. I would have preferred morning writing, as I seem to get my best ideas while in the process of waking up, but there's usually so much to do in the morning. (I also spent a while battling for time with the family computer. Names of the other combatants in this battle withheld to protect the guilty, and myself.)

13. Will you apply NaNo techniques to writing in general? Yes, I think so. I think I've learned the value of just writing and not bothering to look twice as I do rough drafts. Getting the basic ideas out there where you can see them and think about them gives you something more to go on from there. I'm not too good at this yet; my Inner Editor is still alive and kicking. But I'm learning.

14. What was the best thing about doing NaNo 2009? Actually making progress on something - it was a thrilling experience to see something that had just been an idea swimming around in my brain take the physical form of typed words. It's real! Made me feel like I might actually be able to make something out of it after all.

15. What was the worst thing about doing NaNo 2009? The mood swings. The moments when I felt that everything I'd written was terrible. Fortunately for my sanity they alternated pretty regularly with moments of optimism, but they were unpleasant while they lasted.

16. Best advice to someone planning NaNo for the first time? I agree with Nina on this one. Outlines are good, very good...be sure you want to do it and have as much fun with it as you can!

17. Will you do NaNo next year? Sure! I've already got a good idea.

YouTube Tuesday: Jingle Bells

A fun twist on a very old favorite by Martha Mears and the Sons of the Pioneers, from a radio show around Christmas of 1944. (That unintentional rhyme must have given some radio announcers a chuckle while introducing them.) Martha Mears, incidentally, dubbed the singing voice of Marjorie Reynolds performing "White Christmas" in the movie Holiday Inn. The show's announcer interjects a comment at the end.

Snow!

This was the scene yesterday morning.