“For four years, bloggers powerful and insignificant, those blessed with voices like angels and those who sound like Kermit the Frog, the confident and the theologically-confused, all came together to promote peace and harmony and love. But when we look around our world, even after all our hard work, all we see is fighting and killing.
Are you not pleased with our songs and our delightful photos of our decorated trees, bright menorahs, and our cats wearing Santa hats? Has our mission been a failure? Are you telling us that our voices are not LOUD ENOUGH for you, that you are like the LA Lakers at the Staples Center, requiring us to stamp our feet and clap our hands, shouting, “We will, we will ROCK YOU!” just to get your attention? I don’t know if I can promise you all that, oh, Creator of the Universe. Bloggers are a tempestuous and a stiff-necked people. But I do know we will be back for a Fifth time, in this familiar place, bringing joy to others — and hopefully YOU — with our songs and photos and poetry, proving once and for all that we can be nice to each other, for at least one week out of the year!” -Neil, Citizen of the Month
So, today was a fun little event over at Neil’s blog, where he has enlisted bloggers of all different backgrounds to record themselves singing and post it online. Neil compiled it all together, and The Fifth Annual Blogger Christmalhijrahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert was born. I’ve had fun watching it all day long, especially seeing some of my favorite bloggers bravely singing their holiday standards of choice. 
When Neil mentioned this to me, I knew right away what song I wanted to do. It was therapeutic to tell this story, and to gather all of these pictures together. I watched this snuggled up with Kembe last night and it was a full-circle moment. Yes, this is me singing – though I feel like I have to disclose that I am not thrilled with the results. I was shocked – SHOCKED – to learn that singing into the mic of a $300 laptop did not provide the warm, rich sound I envisioned as I practiced this song in the car (nor did the five minutes of quiet that the kids provided give me enough time to do enough takes to get it right). So . . . yeah. It’s a little pitchy, dawg. I considered over-dubbing this with a nice Michael Buble version, but then I decided to get over myself and just post it already. Because I’ve been watching the rest of the concert all morning, and there really is something fun and magical about hearing people sing their own holiday songs, even (and maybe even especially) when their voices are not perfect. Head on over to this link for the rest of the show.
