Every December the Edgewood High School takes two days in December and puts on a choir concert called 'Tis the Season, or just 'Tis to the locals. This year was our first year to be involved with it, so let me tell you about it.
Our small town of Ellettsville is big into the Marching Band and Show Choir. The whole town really supports the kids and the schools in those endeavors and it is amazing to see and they are great programs.
This year, as a seventh grader, which is the first year that you can be in the junior high school choir program. My daughter made the top group called, Mini-Warehouse, which consists of 20 boys and 20 girls in the seventh and eight grades. They dance and sing, and put on a wonderful show. At the junior high you also have the all girls show choir, Center Stage.
Once you get to the High School, you have three options to make show choir. There are two mixed sex groups, one called New Editions and the other, more elite group called Music Warehouse. There is the all girls group called Sophisticated Ladies. In the time that they programs have been around, they have won many awards and done wonders for the community.
So every December, about mid month, the High School choir department puts on the annual concert. All the show choirs from the High School perform. There are also some just regular concert choirs from the High School that perform. Then they have some uber talented kids that perform some solos and duets. They also invited the Junior High show choirs to perform.
Now, once you get to the show, and you arrive early, there is a huge gingerbread house that you walk into. This is the cookie walk. Every high school parent of a show choir member has baked and brought in at least five dozen fancy Christmas cookies. The idea of the cookie walk is that anyone can pick up a box, fill it with their choice of cookies, and they pay by the pound. The money from the cookie walk goes right back into the show choir funds.
All of this was amazing, and I loved it all. But the best part was the actual show. I will remind you that we live in a small town, we have a small public school system, and I thank God every day for the system we have because it is nothing like the systems I hear about just down the road. Let me tell you, the music was worth it!!
The songs were beautiful, one duet was called "One Last Christmas" that had me crying all through the song because of things going on in our lives at the moment. The concert then ended with a "Cantata" of which the opening song was an amazing solo of "Mary Did You Know?". Not only was it an amazing song, but the young lady that sang it had an incredible voice and warranted the loudest applause of the afternoon.
In our schools, the day starts with the pledge of allegiance and then a moment of silence. It is still Christmas, not Holidays and we still sing songs of faith in our concerts. I thank God for our community and our schools, and I wouldn't want it to be any other way. I may not have known it would be this way when we bought our house here, but I think God knew this is where we needed to be and where would be the best place for our kids to grow up.
