Annie's December Blog

'Tis the season!

As much as I don't love our December weather (rain and mud) this is my favourite season of the year. From the start of Advent to the 12th day of Christmas...I love it!

Someone once told me that most bands around here don't do a lot of Christmas music because it's a lot of work to learn all those songs and only play them for one month out of the year. True enough! But for us it's worth the extra effort to learn some Christmas songs. Okay...at least for me it is and thankfully my bandmates are willing to humour me.

We started with just a handful but have been adding one or two a year and now we've got almost two hours worth of seasonal songs. Which does say something about how long Bill and I have been playing together!

I tend to refer to our Christmas music as "off the beaten path" because there are some songs that everyone will recognize but a fair few that you may not have heard before or that the arrangement is vastly different from the traditional. Hopefully you'll enjoy them all. I've been called the Queen of Obscurity because I like to find songs that aren't so well known and bring them to light. There's some great music out there that didn't get much (or any) airplay. (The fact that radio stations tend to play the same songs over and over could be the subject of an entire blog so I'm not going there now.) But recently someone told us it's great that we don't just play the stuff they've been hearing for a month already and are tired of before Christmas even gets here. So we'll stick with being different.

As for the other songs we will put in a Christmas set (when we can't fill the entire time with seasonal pieces)...you can count on them being uplifting. Not even The Mermaid or Irish Rover will make it into a Christmas set list because even though they're fictional songs and very upbeat, everybody drowns in the end. (Except for the narrator.) That said...not all Christmas songs are totally upbeat. Ever hear or read the lyrics to The Coventry Carol? It's a beautiful, haunting melody but not recalling of a happy time. We don't sing that one, though Laurie sometimes plays it. But we do Fairytale of New York, which is a quite poignant Irish one that for many years was the number one Christmas song in Ireland and the UK. But for the most part...we're celebrating the beauty and wonder of the season.

Nollaig Shona agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh!

Here's our upcoming schedule for the holidays and a little beyond.

Saturday, December 6th we start the Christmas season at Thornbee Farm's Organic Press Winery. We'll be playing from 2:00 – 4:00pm in the Tasting Barn. There will be organic snacks as well as things to drink; wine, cider and other options. Thornbee Farm is located at 915 Kuttruff Road, Walworth, NY. https://thornbeefarm.com/ https://theorganicpress.com/

Sunday December 14th we'll be at the Little Theatre Cafe playing from 7:00 – 9:00pm. Always a great time there! The Little Theatre Cafe is at 240 East Avenue, Rochester, NY. (The cafe is around the corner from the main Theatre entrance) https://thelittle.org/cafe

We'll also be playing Christmas music on Friday, December 19th at 77 West Main in Macedon. This is a lovely intimate venue that promotes the local music scene. There will be an open mic session from 6:30 - 8:00pm and then we'll be doing Christmas music from 8:00 till..... 77 West Main Street is also the address in Macedon, NY. They ask a $10 donation at the door. There's coffee, tea and cookies available at 77. https://lamay.com/77westmain.htm

And looking way ahead...we're already scheduled to play at Ramsey's at Champion Hills on Friday, March 13th. There will be Irish dancers performing from 5:30 – 6:00pm and then we'll play from 6:00 – 8:00pm.