Diving into Christmas Music!

I absolutely love doing holiday music in primary!  The primary program is such a wonderful Sunday for me, and typically, after it ends, we get to dive right into Thanksgiving and Christmas music.  You'll notice on the board in the picture above, I have a Thanksgiving sign, and a Christmas sign--that's because we have been doing songs for both holidays for the last month, and it has been wonderful!  Starting the day after Halloween, we had four weeks to start learning our main Christmas song that we are singing in sacrament meeting, while doing as many thanksgiving songs as possible.  I was able to teach/introduce 7 different Thanksgiving songs, including Children All Over the World, which is just so much fun to teach and sing!  We made up words to a few of the songs, talked about the importance of sharing our gratitude in prayers, and got plain silly on some songs, being thankful for everything from pokemon to mascara.  It has been a wonderful month of singing Thanksgiving songs in primary.

After singing Thanksgiving songs for 10-12 minutes, we would jump into our Christmas song, which we are performing on Dec. 13th.  We are singing "Could I Hold the Baby?" which is just a beautiful song.  Lots of words, and an unfamiliar tune, but it brings such a heartfelt spirit on a level that the kids can understand....I'm so glad the Lord led me to pick this song for the kids to learn.  We spent the first 8 or so minutes that first Sunday after Halloween learning the chorus with the visuals from the picture above.  We went on from there, reviewing, learning both verses, and this past Sunday, we watched a video with beautiful imagery and the words scrolling across the screen. We focused on the last statement that really catches the entire meaning of Christmas that can be carried throughout the year: "Jesus loves each one of us endlessly-he loves you and me."

We don't have many kids in primary, but they sing with such power, and with their testimonies on their sleeves.  It is such a pleasure, and blessing, to teach music each week to these kids.  I struggle to feel content in relief society, and that's probably something that shouldn't occur, but I always feel uplifted singing songs in primary.  We have fun, we have spiritual moments, we get creative, we bear our testimonies without even realizing it.....those 20 minutes are so special, and I just wanted to share that here on the blog.  I love my calling. :)