- I imagine that "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" isn't sung as often in public school as it was then. I would guess that most public schools who still have these kinds of sing-alongs stick to secular tunes, such as "Winter Wonderland" or "Sleigh Ride."
- One year, our class sang "Have A Holly Jolly Christmas." For some reason, a group of students must not have thought that the lyric, "And when you walk down the street..." sounded cool enough, as a few of them, despite the teacher's admonishments, insisted on singing, "And when you're walkin' down the street..."
- More than once, I remember all-school sing-along of "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" turning into a fiasco. Inevitably, one class would start shouting out the lyrics instead of singing them. Another class would feel compelled to up the ante and shout the next verse even louder. The next class would shout its verse even more obnoxiously; this would continue until the last class in the rotation would abandon any pretense of singing and simply scream, "AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE!" Not surprisingly, Mrs. S. would call the sing-along to a halt and say, "Let's start again and just sing the verses this time."
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Caroling in the gym before the break
I don't recall it happening every year, but for at least three years, my elementary school would have a round robin Christmas carol sing-along in the gym. Near the end of the school day just before Christmas vacation, the vocal music teacher would play the piano as each kindergarten through fifth grade class sang a prepared carol. Other classes were invited to sing along. While this usually went off without too many hitches, a few thoughts come to mind:
