Author: StgCoach

Retired teacher and public education leader. Pastoral musician, community activist, parliamentarian, and photographer.

Sing Along on the First Day of Christmas

For Christmas Day, sing along on “Joy to the World”! Like a lot of Christmas songs, this one started its existence as a poem. Here’s how it looked when first published.

It was written as Isaac Watt’s take on the second part of Psalm 98. Here’s how it looked in 1719, when published in his “Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Apply’d to the Christian State and Worship.” So it’s now over 400 years old!

Here are those lyrics as they work in the hymn:

Joy to the world! The Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King.
Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room,
And heav'n and nature sing, 
And heav'n and nature sing,
And heav'n, and heav'n, and nature sing!

Joy to the world! The Savior reigns;
Let us our songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders of His love.

Click here for the recording.

Join us at https://lavezzi.us/ on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas to join in this virtual sing-along.

Not sure what this is about? Click here!

A Christmas Sing-Along

Join Us!

My memory of family car trips from my childhood is that the main entertainment was singing.1 It never took much to get us all to try harmonizing! And years later, at Christmas gatherings of Lynn’s family, we’ve sometimes joined in some sing-alongs.

So in this unusual year, I had the idea of a socially distanced Christmas sing-along across the miles and the time zones. We won’t be singing the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song, but our sing-along will occupy the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas that starts on Christmas Day and ends on Epiphany Eve.

Each day I’ll post a recording of different song, along with its lyrics. I make no claim that these are great performances, but they are an opportunity for all of us to have some fun singing along. By Twelfth Night, you’ll have access to a little library of twelve songs.

Obviously, I’ve had to make some decisions. I’ve included both religious and secular songs. Some holiday songs that try to tell stories are frequently shortened; I’ve opted for longer versions, including some verses you may never have heard. I tried to go with songs that I thought people could sing and would enjoy singing. (Some lovely Christmas songs are just too challenging, too archaic, or too dark.) And as I’ve worked on this project, I was surprised to learn how many Christmas songs are anticipatory and don’t make as much sense once Christmas Day has come and gone.2

As we go through the Twelve Days, I’ll continue to add songs and links to this page. You can bookmark this page and use the links that will appear here;3 don’t or just go to my website to get the latest post.

And, oh yes: Merry Christmas!

Notes:

  1. Car radios were pretty basic then, and on the road the signals weren’t particularly reliable. ↩
  2. I had to eliminate a ridiculous number of great secular Christmas songs because they are specifically set for Christmas Eve. ↩
  3. The first song is “Joy to the World,” but you won’t find the link until Christmas day. ↩

Election Workers

August 2016: Lynn and I at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, dropping off my candidacy petitions for State Board of Education.

At a time when people are waiting–patiently or not–for election returns from a few key states, this seems a good time to mention election workers.

For several years, our mother was a Republican election judge. Each party had to have three (I think) judges at the polling place. Since this was in Chicago, the Democrats had the only party apparatus in our area, and the task of recruiting the Republican judges fell to Tally Giaccone, the Democratic precinct captain.1 It wasn’t until later, when I began to have my own experiences with elections workers, that I really began to appreciate the work that they do, and how important our bipartisan election system is.

Beyond the people staffing their polling places, few voters ever interact with our elections apparatus and the people who make it work. I’ve had the opportunity, and it has been pretty inspiring.

As near as I can remember, I’ve been on the ballot six times.2 Four of those races were in Democratic primaries, and two were for public office. For all of them, I needed to visit the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. For one of them, I needed to work with the Secretary of State’s office, which, as the name implies, serves as the main election office for the state.

Back when I was working for NEOEA, I frequently contacted our eleven county boards of elections and the Secretary of State’s office to research school levies, political boundaries, and electoral schedules.

In every case, I have found these folks to be dedicated public servants. They don’t seem to care what party I belong to, and it doesn’t seem to matter what administration is in power: they have been as helpful as could be.

These folks make it their mission to make the system work for all of us. Candidates (most, anyway) are patriots.3 Running for office is hard, and these folks try to make it as positive as it can be. Even when you’re running for a relatively minor position, they give you professional attention and make you feel like your race is the most important one they have to deal with.

In this election year, these folks have gotten a lot of attention; and in some states, they are getting a lot of pressure. They are the unsung heroes of American democracy. Eventually we will get past the present electoral suspense, and one reason will be the dedication of local and state election workers.

Notes:

  1. Some years later I served as his Republican counterpart–Tally was still there. You can imagine the surprise at the few Republican households when a high school junior wearing a flag lapel pin knocked on their doors and introduced himself as their new Republic precinct captain! ↩
  2. I haven’t been notably successful: I’ve won three elections and lost three. ↩
  3. I know, politicians are supposed to be rapacious cretins. But the system starts at the bottom, with people running for city council, or school board, or party central committee. If you want to improve the system, stop whining and run for something. ↩