Christmas Caroling

Sometime around 1984 my wife, Laurie and I were at a Christmas Eve service at St Barnabas UMC here in Arlington. One of our friends, Rob Gettman, spoke up and asked if several of us would come with him to sing Christmas carols in the front yard of a church member’s home. Martha was very ill, waiting for a transplant, and couldn’t come to church, but she could come to her front door.

About twenty of us drove over to her home, stood in her front yard, and when she came to the door we started in with “It Came upon a Midnight Clear”. It was a wonderful moment and tears were running down our cheeks. One problem however was that we had not practiced and another was that we had not brought song sheets. We quickly ran out of words that we could remember and mumbled or hummed the rest. Then we tried “Away in a Manger”, again we started out strong but finished by humming. Next we worked on “Frosty the Snowman”, that was a bad choice because after “…was a jolly, happy soul”, we didn’t agree on the rest of the song. Martha was laughing and crying by this time. We struggled thru “We wish you a Merry Christmas” and she waved and said "Merry Christmas" and "Thank You" and went back inside. I still remember that as being a very special Christmas memory.

A few days later I was in a copy center and they were giving away Christmas carol song sheets with the name of their copy center printed on them. I asked if they would print me some with Still Brothers’ name on it instead and they said sure and gave me a good price. The next Christmas we were giving away song sheets so that anyone that wanted to go caroling would know all the words. We get calls from church groups, girl scouts, families, and others every year. It is a very fun thing we do. If you want some song sheets just give me a call at 817-496-9484 or just come by my office at 3711 W Green Oaks Blvd., you can have all you want.

Merry Christmas