The sounds of Christmas tunes filled Wakamow Valley as a group of carollers braved the cold to serenade residents visiting the park’s Winter Wonderland Valley of Lights.
About 20 members of the Moose Jaw Community Choir gathered in the Lorne Calvert Campground — formerly known as the River Park Campground — on a chilly Dec. 20 evening to sing Christmas songs as residents in vehicles drove slowly past while admiring the lights.
The choir spent nearly an hour belting out the tunes, from “Mary’s Boy Child” to “Jingle Bells.”
Diane Rhodes, director of the Moose Jaw Community Choir, explained that the group offered to sing carols to provide some Christmas flavour and the park board happily accepted.
“I think it went way better than I expected. I didn’t have very high expectations,” Rhodes laughed. “I thought it might be too cold and that nobody would be able to hear us and that we would be standing somewhere far away, and everybody would drive by with their windows shut and they wouldn’t be able to hear us.
“But I was really pleased that everybody heard us that went by, and they were all smiling and happy. And everyone who sang enjoyed it too.”
The choir did not practice before the evening performance, but that didn’t matter because everyone enjoys Christmas songs and knows them enough to perform without rehearsals, Rhodes continued. To ensure everyone sang the same words, she created a multi-page booklet with nearly 40 Christmas tunes.
The community choir normally sings five times a year but hasn’t done anything in public this year because of the pandemic. The group only began practising together in October.
If the pandemic situation improves, Rhodes noted that the choir plans to host a concert in the spring. That could occur at St. Andrew’s United Church since that’s where the group’s last concert was held, but nothing is certain as long as COVID-19 lingers.
