• eddstarr88
    • 1 year 11 months ago
    • Posts: 6883
    		 Every year my grade school held an annual Christmas concert. Song selections were usually a mix of holiday standards plus a few odd-ball songs just for fun.

    One song I never liked was "Pablo the Reindeer from Mexico", too lame.

    However I always enjoyed "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers". I've only heard this song performed by children but the lyrics are very tough for small kids to sing clearly and the song's pace gets in the way at times.

    Thanks to the Disney Sing Along Christmas series I have a link to the song with lyrics. "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" used to be a kids concert regular but I don't hear it much any more. Follow the lyrics and notice how hard the kids have to work to make this song come alive.

    Disney Sing Along Christmas series...

    The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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    • Thatdudeinthehoodie
      • 1 year 11 months ago
      • Posts: 64
      		 I never liked doing those concerts as a kid. I just lip synced to everyone else. Whenever it got to frosty I wanted to tear my ears off even to this day.
      Thats right I ran over the Taco Bell dog...... I got banned from Taco Bell for life.
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      • pikachulover
        • 1 year 11 months ago
        • Posts: 2932
        		 When I was in 5th grade I guess to get around religious themes the theme of the show was "Christmas all Around the World". Each grade had a different country. Some of the countries were England, Mexico, and France. My class was lucky enough to get 3 different countries. The production was awful! Nobody showed up from my class! A lot of people had to do multiple roles.

        For the closing song all the classes sang New Edition's "Christmas All Over the World".

        Luckily after 5th grade I was never in another Christmas concert again.
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        • Drahken
          • 1 year 11 months ago
          • Posts: 1239
          		 Being in those always pissed me off. If I had wanted to be in the chorus, I would have chosen to do so. initially (and later when I was either really ticked off about it, or just feeling very obstinant) I would just not do anything. Of course I would chewed out for that, so I would usually lipsync just to keep the bitch off my back.

          We never did "modern" songs. I don't think any of the songs we ever did were written after 1920. If they were, they were done in such a style that they could pass for old classics. We did do a few "new to me" songs though, for example: that was where I first heard :up on the housetop".
          The closest to a "modern" or "for fun" song we got was "like a lightbulb!" in rudolph. (IIRC, that started out unapproved, but in later years the teacher gave up trying to stop us & made it an official part of our performance.)
          signature*WARNING: The above post may be highly opinionated, read at your own risk.

          Gee Caspah, you're a twicky one!
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          • Alyssa Branen
            • 1 year 11 months ago
            • Posts: 2171
            		 I always somewhat enjoyed them. Even though I was a super shy kid, I liked Music class and was in chorus. I remember though that when we were in fifth grade on the music we did at Christmas concerts seemed to be "higher end" Christmas music..like no more Rudolph and cutsie songs, it was more gospel like stuff.

            My son on the other hand, has stage fright like a mofo. He was fine in Kindergarden but starting in first grade he'd stand up there and get nauseated and just silently cry, so they'd hide him in the back. I decided to just not put him through the torture and not make him attend the at night performances of the music shows. So far the music teacher hasn't bitched at me for it. I've tried to just make him do it and feel like just skipping out on it is better than him throwing up on stage or getting so nervous at 8 years old that he just starts to cry up there and is humiliated. Normally im in the mindset that you make them do something until they get over it but I just cant do it with this one lol
            :)
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            • Drahken
              • 1 year 11 months ago
              • Posts: 1239
              		 You mean "you make them do something until they hate you & resent you for life because of it".
              Case in point: My "get the bitch off my back" comment above. I generally liked music class & had no issues with the teacher the rest of the year. However, I feel nothing but resentment towards her whenever I think of her even after all these years, because of being such a bitch about forcing everyone to do the xmas concert crap.

              Fortunately, only the school-hours concerts were mandatory, the evening ones were purely voluntary. Needless to say, I never performed in any of those.
              signature*WARNING: The above post may be highly opinionated, read at your own risk.

              Gee Caspah, you're a twicky one!
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              • Alyssa Branen
                • 1 year 11 months ago
                • Posts: 2171
                		 LOL yep that is the one. I mean I know in a sense we don't want to coddle kids because that is something people these days always bitch about, coddling and spoiling kids to much but I honestly just don't see the evening concerts as a huge deal. I mean yes, I would love love love my son to WANT to perform in them, as i'm a big sap and love that sort of thing, but since he's got legit stage fright that causes him to practicly puke, I don't want him to do something by accident that will target him for extra teasing, know what I mean?
                :)
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                • eddstarr88
                  • 1 year 11 months ago
                  • Posts: 6883
                  		 Only years later, talking with old classmates, did I realize all the negotiating that went on between teachers, the principal and the head of the music department.

                  The mandatory, annual Christmas concert was considered a key to our well-rounded education because it combined so many disciplines - like singing as an individual and as a group member, plus public presentation.

                  It was a trial for kids who wanted nothing to do with any of this. I survived singing "Up On The Housetop" because it was a break in the constant testing routine grind of school work.

                  Of course it was sooo easy to pick on the "star" kids that loved performing in front of an auditorium full of parents.
                  The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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                  • bassman21
                    • 1 year 11 months ago
                    • Posts: 4553
                    		 I don't remember doing any Christmas concerts or Christmas plays when I was in school. I remember some forth graders doing one when I was in kindergarten, but we never did. In first grade we did a play in our classroom for some parents and it was a complete disaster. I played Santa and to give me a belly we put a kids jacket under the Santa outfit I was wearing. During the play the jacket fell out. :( We did do them at church. The older kids did the singing and the younger kids like me did the props. I was a shepherd every year.

                    When I went to private school we had one in 4th and 5th grade. Oddly enough neither were Christmas themed. The one in forth grade was called Kid Praise IV. It was about a singing church mouse trying to get in touch with God. You can look it up on youtube. We performed it a few days before Christmas at night in the main church. The next year it was "Arch the Angel" which I remember very little of, but I think it might of had some Christmas with it.

                    I feel so deprived.
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                    • eddstarr88
                      • 1 year 11 months ago
                      • Posts: 6883
                      		 It used to be a rite of passage to have little kids sing in grade school. It's not the same when you get older and I know that had I not performed in grade school I would've missed out on a one-time experience too.
                      The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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                      • darthmunk
                        • 1 year 11 months ago
                        • Posts: 3365
                        		 We did them from Kindergarten to grade 6 or something.
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                        • eddstarr88
                          • 1 year 11 months ago
                          • Posts: 6883
                          		 There was a Christmas show during my high school years but it was an evening event held in the school's auditorium. We didn't stage an annual show in high school but I think that made it feel really special.
                          The Eldorado is dead. Long live the Eldorado.
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                          • Alyssa Branen
                            • 1 year 11 months ago
                            • Posts: 2171
                            		 We had to do mandatory (well, you didn't HAVE to show up of course but most did) music concerts until about 6th grade, when it became optional to be in Chorus or not. Once you were in Chorus you did more serious music peices, most of them no one knew or recognized LOL except for maybe "The Rose" or "Stand By Me". In 5th grade we actually did a musical version of Stone Soup LOL (we turned the story into a play/musical). It was really odd. It wasn't exactly a Chorus thing, it was an actual CLASS play. Everyone in the class had a part, even if it wasn't a speaking roll, everyone sang the songs though. I did Chorus for a bit in 6th grade but quit towards the end of the year. It started to get really boring and I longed for the study hall period that the kids who weren't in chorus had. After that I actually joined Chorus again in 7th grade when we were at a different school (our tiny school closed down at the end of my 6th grade year so we were bused to the nearest jr high after that) and did Chorus all through 8th grade. I didn't join in highschool until Sophmore year, and low and behold it was the same chorus teacher that I had had at my elementary school. He's actually a really really nice guy. Unfortunatly, he was only the teacher for that one year and then the rest of the years it was a different teacher. However, she was even better. Most of the songs we did though were of course old and super boring except for the ocasional godspell or grease number.
                            :)
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                            • Sunriser
                              • 1 year 11 months ago
                              • Posts: 3807
                              		 I remember these so well and I was considering watching some of our holiday concerts on video. The funniest had to be the school production we did where Santa left the North Pole to become a country music star. Hilariously bad.

                              Sadly, I was a music nerd all through school, so I was in show choir and band for a while. Being in the band, we always had to stay on stage while the choirs performed and it was torture to listen to them, so we used to amuse ourselves behind the scenes- often getting ourselves in trouble.

                              But I have some memories of awesome holiday performances as well. Stuff that made you cry it was so beautiful, and one particular band song that we listened to afterwards and swore it was the professional recording!

                              Either way, it is an experience that everyone should suffer through.
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                              • Goofball
                                • 1 year 2 days ago
                                • Posts: 101
                                		 At first, I just accepted the fact that I had to go to these, but starting in about the 3rd grade, I HATED them! And not just the Christmas ones, but all of them. I used to purposely neglect telling my mom about them, but she would always find out from one of the other parents. I used to try to feign illness to get out of them, but of course, it never worked.
                                And I remember rehearing for the concerts in music class. During the rehearsals, being boys, my buddies and I would goof off. One day, the music teacher yelled "This is what you're going to do in front of a thousand people?!" One thousand? We're talking about a small town here. My school had K-12 in the same building with a total of about 400 students, so I think the teacher's expectations were a little high.
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