Concert #11

You may be wondering what happened to concerts 3-10. Those were the concerts Natalie and I played in at our church's annual Christmas Festival. From Friday evening to Sunday night we did 8 concerts, which makes for an exhausting weekend, but it is very fulfilling to be a part of such a special event.

The Thursday after the festival,  Brandon had his first real band concert. At the beginning of the school year, Brandon brought home an order form for his uniform (an embroidered polo shirt). I suggested that he wear Natalie's old shirt, since it didn't look to me that they had changed much in the past four years, and I didn't want to spend money on another band shirt that would only be worn a handful of times. Brandon really wanted the exact shirt as the other kids, but agreed that he would ask if he could use Natalie's shirt. After talking to his director, Brandon came home and said that even though the director said he could wear the old one if he wanted, it would be much better to get a new shirt because they were made out of a different material (a smooth cotton as opposed to a pique) and would keep you cooler when you are performing, which, he claimed, would be a lot better. His argument was pretty weak, but I took pity on him and bought him the new version of the uniform shirt.

 The night of Brandon's concert was really cold and he hadn't brought a jacket. On the way out to the car I had to tease him a little that it was too bad he hadn't stuck with Natalie's "much warmer" band shirt. To which he sheepishly admitted that in his excitement to get dressed that afternoon, he had accidentally put on Natalie's old shirt instead of his new one and had ended up wearing the older version of the uniform to the concert after all.

Here is Brandon's band performing at their concert. All of these kids have only been playing their instruments since the beginning of the school year, which I think is pretty impressive. In "First Rockin' Christmas" Brandon is playing snare drum, in "Winter Wonderland he is playing bells, and in "Colors of Christmas" he is on bass drum and wind chimes.