The benches were filled for the annual carol sing at Marlborough Friends Meeting the evening of Dec. 17. After a short period of silent worship in the Quaker style and two Bible readings, the singing part of the program started, led by a guitarist and a harp player.
We sang a nice mixture of traditional hymns like "Joy to the World" and "The First Noel" and secular songs like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells." "The 12 Days of Christmas" had us all out of breath by the time we finished with all those lords and maids and drummers.
It's funny to hear the different ways that people pronounce words like "Deity" (Day-ity? Dee-ity?) and "Alleluia" (Is there an initial H or not?).
Several of the songs took me back sharply to elementary-school Christmas programs. Thanks to our martinet of a chorus teacher, I still make a point of enunciating the "gel" in "angel" very distinctly, and I pronounce the second syllable of "comfort" like it's a military fort, not "fert."
The evening closed with a beautiful, reverent version of "Silent Night," followed by cookies, cider (fitting; the Barnard family of Barnard's Orchards were among the founders of Marlborough Meeting) and good fellowship.
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