Saturday, December 22, 2012

The Song I'll never sing with a Straight Face.

Good evening!

Sorry I've been out of touch this month...apparently once I released Fresh Ice, my body gave out completely and I've been one of those Walking Dead Zombie people...only less attractive.  No, really.  It's been the Snotpocolypse on my face.  I've had drainage run from my nose, throat, eyes...and I gave up cleaning out my ears when what I was pulling out of my ears didn't seem like something that should be percolating in a human body.  Oh, and I haven't had a voice.  Not at all.

Not having a voice for someone like me this time of year is really hard.  A big part of getting into the holiday spirit for me is singing.  I love singing Christmas songs in church, at work, at home.  I am a person who loves to sing.  This year, without a voice, it just hasn't been the same.

But not being able to sing brought to mind one of my favorite Christmas stories.  I've shared this before on this blog, but a good story is a good story, and hey, there are those out there who haven't heard this one.

So kids, gather 'round, and I'll tell you why, even if I had a voice, I will never be able to since "Peace, Peace"  without laughing out loud:

One of the cornerstones of traditional Christmas Eve experiences is the Children's Christmas Eve service. This is a church service where little girls put on a lot of velvet and curl up their hair and boys are wrestled into sweater vests and clip on ties so that they can stand up in front of church, sing a few Christmas hymns, and recite in unison "FORUNTOYOUISBORNASAVIORWHICHISCHRISTTHELORD!"

It's a big deal, Christmas Eve services. Cameras, cam corders whir in the back as 8th graders sit sullenly until it's their turn to stand up and recite, and there's always some 4 year old who cries so hard he wets his pants.

When I was one of those surly 8th graders, our Christmas Eve service was lead by the pastor's wife, an imposing figure of a woman we're going to call...wow, I don't have a clever name for her because, well, she's was so singular. I'll call her Mrs. because if I call her anything else, someone, somewhere, might sue me. But I swear to you every word of what I'm about to tell you it true.

The high point of our Christmas Eve service the year I was in 8th grade was the singing of Silent Night and Peace Peace. This is a musical number that is performed generally with a children's choir and an adult choir. The kids sing Silent night and the adults sing Peace Peace, which goes like this:

Peace, Peace, Peace on earth and good will to all
This is the time for love
This is the time for joy
Now let us all sing together
For peace peace peace on earth.

When done correctly, it's magical.

Mrs. was one of those grand women who believed in over dressing for everything. At 6'3" 275 lbs., she was hard to miss. But when she did up her mountain of curly red hair, painted all nine of her fingernails bright red (you read that right, she was missing the pinky finger on her right hand at the knuckle. Just a stubby finger...no red nail.) and donned something sparkly and flowing, she was a vision of Vegas like chic. She was the choir director for the entire church, which means the choir, the junior choir, of which I was a member, and the school kids who couldn't really sing or didn't want to be in junior choir but were forced to be in the church service all fell under her bedazzled, fleshy flapping arms.

Her vision for this song was sort of a theater in the round magic that really should involve a couple of teamsters to pull off. The senior choir was to line up behind the junior choir on the altar area. No risers, so the senior choir was sort of buried in the back. The non singing kids were on either side of her standing in lines. The organist...and this is key...was in the balcony BEHIND HER. And the bigger logistics issue was that the organ was backwards in the balcony. In order for the organist to see what was going on on the main floor of the church, he or she had to look in the mirror on the organ. Oh, and the organ bench was actually higher than the balcony railing, so there was always a certain degree of danger in playing the organ.  You never knew if THIS would be the day the organist crashed over the railing to certain death.

The service itself went pretty well. No one cried that year, or wet their pants. All we had to do was get through "Peace Peace" and we were free to go home and enjoy the real meaning of Christmas...you know, the present part.

The organist, a darling woman who shared my maiden name, and I will call her Ruth, because that is her name, fired up "Silent night" and the kids started singing on all three sides of Mrs. Then, with a point of a long red claw, Mrs. started the senior choir.

I'm not sure how it happened...okay, sure I am. The members of the senior choir couldn't see Mrs., so therefore they buried their faces in their music and ignored the fact that the organ, and with the organ the children, were pulling farther and farther ahead of them. (Average age of the senior choir...84)

In a move that was unheard of...and is now legendary, Mrs. stopped the show. "Stop, stop! Ruth! Stop playing!"

Mrs. just stopped Christmas Eve. Just like that. I was in the front row of the Junior Choir...it was all I could do to stop from laughing out loud.  No one, in the history of Christmas Eve services, had EVER stopped anything.  No, I've seen kids pass out.  I've seen wailing kids run in fear from the front of the church to their parents.  I've seen kids spill hot wax on themselves  (back when kids were allowed, nay, ordered, to hold actual live fire.)  But no one ever stopped a Christmas Eve service.  The tension in the church was a heavy cloud.

Not for the senior choir though...the bass section, God love them, didn't hear her shouting to stop...and in a silent church, the four basses growled out, "NOW LET US ALL SING TOGETHER!" before an Alto shoved them with her folder.

There was a horrible, delicious stretch of time when the room was silent, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Mrs. took a deep breath, raised her enormous arms, the light of the Christmas tree twinkling off the five diamond rings she wore on her nine fingers. "Ruth, take it from measure 84," she said.

We moved from that town a year later, and I don't know what became of Mrs. I do know this: That Christmas Eve became a legend across many parts of Wisconsin,  and to this day I will run into someone and we'll get to talking about Christmas music and they'll say, "Well, I'll never be able to sing "Peace Peace" with a straight face again."

And neither will I.

Hey, you all have a marvelous Christmas, or, whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope it's marvelous.  And I'll see you in 2013.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Ladies and Gents...FRESH ICE!

Hello all!

I try to keep my two blogs separate, but this week I have to make the same announcement I made over at It's a Writer's World!

After much blood, sweat, and tears, countless cups of coffee and more pinot noir than I care to admit to, Fresh Ice, my latest romantic suspense novel, is finally available in all formats!

Want it in print: Click right here!


Got a Kindle: Click right here!


Got a Nook: Click right here!

Got a different sort of e-reader, or want to read it on your computer: Click right here!


Remember, like all indie authors, my books live and die by word of mouth! If you love Fresh Ice, please leave a positive review on the site where you bought it.


If you don't love Fresh Ice...maybe just keep that to yourself!

New Year's Resolutions: Let's see if I can do better this year.

  I'm fully aware that it's almost the middle of February, FAR past the time when I give out the grades from my New Year's Resol...