Christmas Performance and Karaoke

This year, the church held another Christmas concert-esque event. Seth and Mandy both participated, as did some of our cousins. Mandy played the cello and sang in the choir, and Seth just sang.

The concert went very well. God be praised that Mandy was calm during her playing and that she played very well without her usual nervousness. Mom also made ten delicious cheesecakes for the reception afterwards; I only got a few pictures, as I got distracted, but needless to say, they were beautiful and tasted amazing. It was a good evening, and we all had a good time with our church body and family members who came out for the event.

I did take videos of the event, but the 18-minute compilation that I put together won't upload on blogger. I did upload it on facebook, but it won't show up here for some reason.

Otherwise, not much else has been going on. Dad and Seth are staying busy with work. Mandy is staying busy with school and her social schedule. Mom has now gotten into Christmas cookie mode. And I've not been doing too much. I'm trying to finish a draft of my novel at breakneck pace so I can use a free printing coupon I got. There are currently two opportunities for me to do some form of editing or writing work, and I'm waiting to hear back from one of them, as nothing has come of it yet. But I'll keep you updated on that.

On another note of performance, I did something that I'd never done before last night: sing karaoke in public. And no, no alcohol of any kind was involved. I went out with my college friends Blair and Christie, as we wanted to hang out during Christmas break, so we went to a little coffee shop in downtown Lawrenceville. The place was somewhat empty and didn't have a lot of people there (and most of them couldn't sing anyway), so it took courage for one solo piece, and then it became addicting. Singing once wasn't an option; I kept wanting to do other songs. I first did a poor attempt of a duet for Mamas and Papas "California Dreamin'", and my first solo song was Enya's "Only Time." A lot of people that night were singing country, so I tried to alternate between genras. During the evening I sang Josh Groban's "To Where You Are," Kelly Clarkson's "Behind These Hazel Eyes," Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" (another bad duet because Christie and I didn't know this particular version of the song, so it was hard to keep up with the lyrics on the screen), "Haven't Found What I'm Looking for" by U2, and "Summertime" by Ella Fitzgerald (the version on the screen was different from the version I knew, so I stumbled a lot over this one). Even if I sounded awful, I had a lot of fun. I was really getting into it on the stage, something I didn't expect to do; last time I sang in a performance was the youth choir at church, and I got a bad case of stage fright, and my mouth kept going dry on me (and it didn't help that I couldn't sing alto at the time, even though I had been told I was an alto). It was a good evening. I did get sort of tired of some of the bland/ lackluster performances and the frequent country songs (I personally thing that American folk has a lot more personality and variety than country does), and I wasn't fond of the Maroon 5 cover (I hate Maroon 5 and their perverse lyrics) or of the whole Gospel-praise stuff. But, otherwise, it was a good evening. I really enjoyed the coffee shop, and I wouldn't mind going again with my friends at some point in the future.