My favorite part of Christmas

This is the best Sunday of the year, and I have to try to capture the moment so it will last a little longer for me. All around the world, congregations are sharing a Christmas program for their services today. Especially in the LDS Church, these programs are very similar, with a bunch of music (often the same favorite Christmas hymns) and some narrative or testimony in between songs.

Despite the predictability of it all, I love it. There is such comfort in tradition. And especially, for me at least, such power in the music, even the same music I've been hearing my whole life.

I am so blessed right now to be our ward choir director. It has been a challenge, a learning experience, and often a frustration. It's not the easiest calling, especially at this point in my life with three young and energetic boys. (By the way, Bruce is an amazing support, and manages not only to sing with the choir, but keep the boys under control, carry around my box of music, and serve up my freshly baked cinnamon rolls to choir members.)

Today the choir sang, and it was truly a choir of angels. We have been preparing for months and have a fairly good choir. But today (as so often happens), they were a different group. Every song was perfectly sung, and even better, they meant every word and offered it as their collective testimony to the congregation. Music can touch my heart like nothing else I have experienced, but only now and then. We have practiced so much that I don't usually think about the words or enjoy the music.

Today I was touched by the Spirit and by the service these singers have given to worship their God. Especially I was overcome when the choir sang "O Come, All Ye Faithful" along with the congregation. It's not my favorite Christmas hymn and I wasn't expecting it to be so powerfully moving. But the incredible organ accompaniment, our choir's angelic descant, and the sight of a few hundred friends singing praise to Jesus Christ made me tremble and get teary-eyed. I was reminded what this entire season is about during the last verse of the hymn. I wish you could have been there too, because the words alone can't quite convey my testimony of this:

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning;
Jesus to thee be all glory giv'n.
Son of the Father, now in flesh appearing;
Oh come let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord.

May we adore Him and glorify Him in all we do this Christmas season and throughout our lives, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.