Christmas 1997: The Marauding Carollers Peter B. Steiger 12/17/97 Talking with some of the other folks at church who like to sing led us to make plans to go carolling. We figured we'd pick a festive- looking neighborhood or, better still, find some shut-ins who couldn't escape once we started singing at them. We got to discussing which days were best for maximum attendance and by mutual consent managed to pick a day that was the most inconvenient for the largest number of members of the church. No matter; we still had three families along and with the whole Needham clan we numbered around 47. Someone gave us a hot tip on a shut-in in a nearby trailer park; she waved in the general vicinity of the park and said the person was spacey. Only later did I figure out she meant the trailer is in "space C". Anyway, I'm still not sure whether we were sent off to that house for a mission of Christmas cheer or an act of vengeance on the part of the person who sent us ("Just wait until this crowd comes hammering at her door! That'll teach her to criticize my knitted elephant tusk warmers!") Most of the members of the church probably have some vague awareness by now that I like hats and I have a lot of them - I've worn my Indiana Jones fedora, a few cowboy hats, my Scottish plaid cap, my Greek fisherman's cap, and even my big fuzzy Russian fur hat on occasion. But I haven't had a chance to bring out the really interesting stuff - like my visually and audibly loud jester's cap. But I figured this time I could use something that made a cheery jingle sound, so right about the time the Intercession Hour was wrapping up its prayer session I came jingling into the church in the wake of a couple dozen Needhams and my own kids, Punch and Judy. For some reason the Intercession Hour participants suddenly found reasons to hurry home ("I'd love to stay and hear you sing, but I just remembered I left, uh, the living room lights on!") Well, the rest of us piled into our caravan and wandered off to find this mysterious "space C" we had heard about. I was in the lead - talk about the blind (or is that the visually challenged?) leading the blind! But I saw some buildings that looked more or less like mobile homes, so we headed down that road and started looking for addresses. The mailboxes at least told us we were in the right neighborhood, based on the numbers, but the arrangement of the trailers was quite an alphabet soup. We passed an H and a B and an L and a D, and I think the alpha and the omega at one point. Finally we figured we'd just pull in at the end of the rows of houses and work our way back to the beginning. This was probably a good idea, because my constant U-turns and complete circles in those small driveways was probably not having a good effect on the surrounding cars. We went to the first lit house and sent one of the more expendable kids up to the door to knock while the rest of us stood poised to flee if the owner answered with a loaded shotgun (I've lived in Houston and Dallas all my life; this isn't an unreasonable fear). Well, someone reasonably friendly looking answered so we belted out the first of three songs. Now, Sylvia, who did a professional job of printing up the songs for us, is a purist who insists on singing all the verses of a carol. We got to the 9th or 10th verse of "Silent Night" and we noticed that our victim... uh, audience... had let the radiant smiles give way to kind of a glazed stupor. So we hastily skipped on to a quick chorus of "We wish you a merry winter equinox festival appropriate to the religion or lack thereof that is your free choice" and hit the road - but not before our audience had her revenge on us. While we were singing, she ducked back into the house and came back with a fistful of candy canes for all the kids. Yeah, here we are trying to wear the little tykes out and she comes along and gets them soaring on a sugar high. This did NOT bode well for the rest of the evening. Sure enough, within minutes the kids were literally bouncing off each other, playing in the snow and running rampant in the street. Playing in the snow? Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell it hasn't snowed in over six weeks. What on EARTH are these big piles of snow still doing in the yards? As if the kids' antics weren't enough excitement, I quickly found out what it means to stand in two inches of snow wearing only a thin pair of sneakers. When we got home I had to put both feet in boiling water for an hour just to remind my nerve endings that I have body parts below the knee. But I digress. Somewhere in there we reached our goal; as we walked away from one house I noticed that there was a big "Space C" on the side of the building. There were some other interesting houses, such as the one with three dogs the size of South Dakota lunging at us while we sang - or maybe it was just one dog; now that I think about it I believe I heard the owner yelling "DOWN, Cerebrus!") One place had one of those hyperactive yapping things that's 3% fur and 97% bark; I had to pick up one of Larae's kids and hold her on my shoulders so she could sing without being yapped to death. They say it's not a REAL party until the police show up, and I'm proud to say our carolling expedition was a real party. As we approached the last row of houses a police car drove by the place where our three cars were parked off the side of the road. At first he drove on by - three cars pulled over along the road are no big deal, but 62 marauding carollers led by a weird hippie resembling Charles Manson in a jester's cap made him turn around and come get a closer look. We went over to reassure the officer that we weren't out tipping cows or attaching violent anti-technology treatises to letter bombs, and offered to treat him to a sample of our wares. With a resigned sigh he put on a convincing smile and said he'd love it, and we launched into one of the longer epic carols. Sure enough, around verse 18 he got that glazed look that many of our audience had developed, so we wrapped it up before he went for the tear gas. Right about this time we noticed that one of my own 5.95-year-old was bawling (either that or singing REALLY off-key). It was probably just a combination of being tired, cold, and startled by the flashing lights of the patrol car, but it may have been his guilty conscience nagging him about the piece of candy he stole from a convenience store when he was 3. Either way, it took some work to calm him down and get him to give the Carolling Police a friendly handshake before we moved on. By this time we had lost a large percentage of our choir to frostbite and exhaustion - a few of the Needhams were now in suspended animation in blocks of ice, and the Snell brood had fallen asleep midway through our last chorus of "We wish you whatever sort of winter festival appeals to your lifestyle". Now we were starting to hear requests for a bathroom break, and while I tried to be encouraging ("Come on, kids, it's only another four miles!") I was outvoted and we decided to go on back home to put our assorted offspring to bed. Larae picked out two kids at random, we grabbed two more, and we sent the rest home with the Needhams. We'll get it all sorted out one of these days. Driving home tonight, I was reminded of the slogan my barbershop quartet used on our business cards: "We put the HARM in HARMony!" Fa la la la la, y'all.