When my brother and I were young, we took piano lessons with Mrs. Wheeler, an older lady who lived nearby who also served as the organist for her local church. (Incidentally, Mrs. Wheeler was a popular teacher in our neck of the woods. Her other clients included, all before I personally knew any of them, the older sister of a classmate, the pitcher on my softball team my sophomore year, and most coincidentally, Karen, my dearest BFF, who was amongst the advanced students.)

Twice a year, we’d have a concert in her living room — once in the spring for our parents and once in December, which I think was just for the students and after which she’d serve us refreshments and give us handmade ornaments. (If my parents put any of ours up, I’ll add a photo later today, but I didn’t think of this post idea until after we’d left home, which is where most of mine are.)

But essentially this meant that we started learning our two Christmas carols in mid-November so that we’d have them in good shape for mid-December.

There’s a possibility there’s an old program downstairs in the piano bench, where our sheet music lives, but I don’t want to wake anyone to find out. Since I don’t have any reference materials for the songs we all would have performed and without video confirmation to the contrary, let’s assume the songs we all would have played went something like this:

Karen, this is how you remember it, too, right?

Tomorrow, maybe I’ll sit down and see if I can play something Christmassy if there’s a time when no one’s around.

Did the rest of you have Christmas performances with instrument teachers?