Nu Ar Det Jul Igen

Translation: Now is it Christmas again (literally) Now it is Christmas again (properly).

Friday night Theo came with us and we got a Christmas tree! It's just a cute little gaffer with a bit of a bald spot. We don't have a lot for the tree yet (although considering we've bought none, we're doing pretty well--Thanks Mom and Dad :)). So it's a bit of a Charlie Brown tree, but I am just glad to have one. Siebenga family tradition is to set up the tree on St. Nicholas Day--the sixth. Growing up we picked one up from the neighbour who cuts it out of his tree line so I have little experience picking a tree out of a lot. S We had to buy a stand for it--cost nine dollars at Canadian Tire. It's red and green and has a little dish for water.

So far we have all the ornaments from Brent's parents on and the star that we got from Rach and Trev for Christmas last year. :) We're going to make Danish paper heart baskets tonight. I'll show pictures as they are finished. :)

Also, Saturday afternoon Brent and I took the train downtown and attended a singalong of Handel's Messiah, Hallelujah chorus and all. It was wonderful. The Calgary Philharmonic put it on. The orchestra was on stage with the soloists but the choir sat in the audience with us. The audience was divided into soprano, alto, tenor and bass sections but since Brent and I wanted to sit together, we sat in the tenor section although he is a bass and I am an alto. The conductor was Handel himself! (Although he looked surprisingly like the conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic). We arrived too late to buy the score, so I sang along from memory for the first half and then one of the tenors offered to share his score so I read off it for the second half. Next year we'll be sure to get there in time to buy a score! If you ever have an opportunity to participate in something like this, I highly recommends it. It cost fifteen dollars, about a quarter of what one of the evening non-singalong versions of the production cost, and we got the same show as them plus the interactive element!