It’s early Christmas morning, and it was a long day and very late night after a 5 pm Family Candlelight service, and the 10:30 pm Baroque Christmas Eve at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. We didn’t get home until well past 1 a.m. The children of LCH were the stars at the 5 pm service, including the F.R.O.G.S. (Families Revering Our God in Song) choir and instrumentalists. Who can forget the stunning performances by Max Womack (violin), Reid Womack (cello), Sophia Stark (soprano) and Raphael Stark (djembe). These kids were absolutely terrific!

I realized that in typing all these bulletins, that there is not one single choral piece, not one single hymn, not one piece of organ music that is repeated in these six services! That’s a whole pile of music — I think the stack of music on the organ bench is at least six inches high!

Carl and I spent most of the day (Christmas Eve) working on the 10:30 am and 7:00 pm St. Stephen’s day bulletins. The 10:30 am bulletin is printed, but the 7:00 pm Solemn Vespers program will have to be printed on Sunday afternoon, since all the copyshops are closed on Christmas Day!

Last night’s Baroque Christmas celebration was absolutely over the top in the quantity and difficulty level of music—Bach Christmas Oratorio and Praetorius Christmas Mass— the pinnacles of Lutheran composers. We had musicians stationed all over the building, including a brass choir and one pair of timpani positioned on top of the Board Room! (Another pair of timpani were downstairs next to the big organ.) Our program booklet was 28 pages long—and yet, we didn’t come close to Kings College’s 52-page program!