Mimi Aysha said
After thanksgiving yesterday, part of the fam and a couple of friends stayed to play Christmas songs, we had a blast....I got demoted to signing harmony with the grandkids, who were the only ones who thought I was awesome!

...and on Sunday we are heading off with a bunch of friends to "the Grand Ole Christmas Show" at our local theater. It's Christmas old style.

A mixture of amazing musical talent, singing, comedy skits and jokes. Our friends daughter is a member of Blue Water Highway, who are featured in the show, and they invited us the first year, since then we have been hooked....there's always a moment when we all join in with the big opera guy who goes old stye with some beautiful Christmas Carols, which always tears me up a little.

Reminds me of the old fashioned entertainment I remember watching when we were kids. My mum was an amateur opera singer at the local theater and my brother and I used to have our 2 little seats on the sidelines and just watch her in awe through every Christmas performance... (unfortunately I did not inherit her voice!)

There's no other way to explain that warm, fuzzy feeling, a wonderfully entertaining start to the Christmas season...so looking forward to it!

  

  Awesome @Mimi Aysha - I know precisely what you mean, and I don't know why it's particularly like that at the Xmas Season - but yeah - I suppose - it's one of "the times" for family get-togethers - if not in person, then at least the once-a-year-or-so letter.

Letters are a good thing, we need more of them really, rather than the quick emails or artificially-created electronic greetings cards ( I have never sent such a thing, nor have I ever done the other most hated (by me) "mass greeting thing" - you know - the type of thing folks post in the local paper "Bill and Debbie etc etc etc, Wish all our friends and Family etc etc, All the best for... etc etc" MAN I HATE THAT  OK, so I'm old fashioned - and would much rather take the time to actually think about what has occurred to my friends or family in the last year, and actually communicate with them...  ).

It would behove us all to think more about friends and remote / scattered extended family at all times, rather than seeing it as a "duty" at one specific time of the year !!!  Yeahhhh

Grumpy old Bill   ( nah, not really )

Oh my goodness @Mimi Aysha .....  

she was on an old show called Opportunity Knocks, with Hughie Green (who apparently was a horrible man) she came in 2nd to a ventriloquist...

  I regret to say I actually remember that show..... my parents watched it, and I hated it - probably because of the host who always seemed to have a kind of "crooked smile" on his face...  unsettling really...   as for "evil looking" it would have been a close call between him and the ventriloquist's dummy....