last night i was reluctant to take a youth group from my church christmas caroling. i was in charge of the activity and, truth be told, didn’t really want to have anything to do with it. at 4pm i called a local nursing home in our area and asked if we could come sing some christmas songs later that night. they hesitantly said yes, and the evening was planned.
the night before i had expressed to lacey how i wasn’t really in the christmas mood this year. being very busy at work in a inner city high school, i’ve just not caught that spirt of christmas for some reason.
we showed up to the nursing home, and after quieting them down some, we found 4 elderly folks in wheelchairs out in the hall. we circled around them and started to sing. it was no mormon tabernacle choir, but the songs touched those that we sang them too. one lady in particular, named helen, didn’t even want us in her room but we started to sing anyways. halfway through silent night, she brightened up and started to sing a long, thanking us over and over again for coming to visit her.
growing up my family performed around 100 shows a year. all 5 boys and mom and dad clogged (www.doubletoe.com) and played a bit of bluegrass music. many of these shows were at retirement communities and nursing homes in the san francisco bay area. during the christmas time we would sometimes do 3 or 4 shows a day leading all the way up to christmas eve. in fact for 10 years, our very last clogging show of the christmas season was always sunnyside court at around 2pm. it capped a 30-40 show season in the month of december and we were excited for that show in more than 1 way.
i guess i needed to show a little love to the elderly folks in nashville for it to really feel like christmas to me. spending all that time in nursing homes and retirement homes did had a profound affect on my life. it wasn’t the “cool” thing to do as a 14 year old boy wanting santa to show up, but it enriched all of our lives, and taught me the true meaning of the season.
i guess i can finally say this season: MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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