Holiday Happenings

Anna & her pop choir friends - Kate, Maggie C., Petra & Maggie P.
It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Well, that is what the song says.  It is definitely the busiest time of the year, complete with parties and concerts.

Anna is a member of the pop choir at school as well as the youth choir at church.  She decided to take a break from piano (at least Theresa hopes it is a break....it may be a permanent break as far as Anna is concerned) and focus on singing.  She is really honing her skills and is doing some occasional cantering at mass.  This year, the pop choir performed a joint Christmas concert with a local Catholic high school on December 11.  The concert featured a former St. Mark student who is quite talented at arranging music and composed a new Christmas song for the high school choir.  You can check out more about Matthew's work here.

Checking out the Biltmore Replica at the Gardens
Anna also performed with the pop choir at St. Mark's annual Christmas program, where they sang an original Christmas song composed by their music teacher, Mrs. Prince.  This was Anna's last Christmas program at St. Mark's and it was definitely one of the best with songs featured in various Christmas movies.  Anna is incredibly fortunate to have Mrs. Prince as a music teacher and choir director.  How many teachers will take the time to put together a program that features children from pre-school to 8th grade and includes everything from instrumentalist, solos, and an electric guitar solo for Christmas Cannon (done by a talented 7th grader) all while arranging some of the music herself.  Anna is looking forward to performing with the youth choir on Christmas Eve, led by Mrs. Prince.

In addition to concerts, Anna has enjoyed celebrating the holidays with her friends.  She co-hosted a surprise birthday party with her friend Anna R. for Petra.  She kicked off Christmas break with a birthday party/movie night at her friend Sofia's house.  Monday she is off to a holiday lunch and pizza party at her friend Anna R.'s and a gift exchange with her friends followed by an evening murder-mystery party with her Girl Scout Troop.

In between Anna's social calendar, we managed to find some time to visit the U.S. Botanical gardens.  While the line for the train display was too long, we still enjoyed the rest of the exhibits.  Meanwhile the real gift the holiday season is Congress passing a budget, which means no government shutdown this holiday season (Theresa is very happy about that).

Merry Christmas!


Joe learns to do a selfie

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