One of my great joys during Christmas season is the music. Not the nauseous, hear everywhere, lame carols that all the stores are playing, but the wondrous, uplifting, joyful music of the season.

I went to see the Azusa Pacific Symphony of Sound concert last Sunday afternoon at Lake Avenue Church. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is one of my favorite Christmas songs, the choir sang it to perfection. The Men’s Chorus did a hilarious rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas with a bunch of random interjections from other songs. The solos during Do you see what I see? were quite splendid. It was a throughly enjoyable performance. APU seems to have a really good music program.

On the 16th, Lake Ave has their Messiah Sing-a-long. I’ve been going to that just about every year. I pretend to be able to sing baritone, and even though they have all the difference voices sitting together, I sit with whomever I go with. Great fun. My church in Boston always did a Messiah Sing, half of it at Christmas and half at Easter. Händel really nailed it with that oratorio.