When I was a child, every night from December 16 till Christmas, I would wander around the neighborhood with some neighborhood kids like me, and, armed with nothing but makeshift tambourines (softdrink crowns hammered flat and strung through with wire), our off-key voices, guts, a thirst for money and a bit of Christmas spirit, we’d pound on doors and ask in a chorus, “Buenas, pwede man Christmas Carol?” (Good Tidings! May we sing Christmas carols?) When given the go signal (we were polite kids, we never carolled unless expressly given permission to do so), we’d belt out into an off-key and sometimes wrong-lyriced version of some carols.
I’ve always loved those carolling moments, not for the money but for the sheer joy of singing, so when a carol group was formed in our office to carol for a cause (Gawad Kalinga – build houses for the homeless in Baseco), I had no hesitations about joining, even though my friends did not want to. Who cares…I may meet some new friends in the process! And I actually did.
We have been practising for a couple of weeks now and it hasn’t been easy to carry an “alto” tune because most of the time, alto doesn’t carry the song’s melody (which means I have to relearn each christmas carol and not get “bullied” by the lead voice into singing the old way).
Finally, this afternoon, our group would be put to the first test as we would perform in the GO Christmas merienda held in 6750. There were only eight of us because all the rest were either out of the country on market visits or too busy with month-end closing procedures. Fortunately all the four voices (soprano, alto, tenor, base) were represented, so we were still able to carry on. We sang two songs (“Hark the Herald” and “Pasko na Sinta Ko”). And the result? We were able to raise P28,000! Wow. And that was only the first one. Hope we can raise plenty more for the poor Baseco people so they’d have a merry christmas indeed.
white christmas…all in white costumes, with what seems like snow in the background