{"id":204,"date":"2025-12-26T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/?p=204"},"modified":"2026-01-02T12:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T12:00:02","slug":"so-that-was-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/news\/so-that-was-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"So that was Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What a rush! My Christmas season started early this year, with a stint at Chasewater Railway supporting their Hospital Santa Trains. A solid day of standing around freezing while singing carols, before retiring to the tea rooms to warm by the real fire!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then onwards to The Nativity, a wonderful production repeated from our premier on 2023. Much kudos to Jimm Rennie the author, and to the cast of community players who brought it to life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cast and Crew, including Jimm Rennie as the Archangel Gabriel, and director Mike Clayton moonlighting as a Shepherd. Photo by Phil Buckley, KARMA TIMES<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We went carolling in Walsall, at the New Art Gallery, LIGHT Cinema, the Saddlers Centre shopping mall and The Table Coffee Shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Civic Carols followed, with the Mayor of Walsall, local MP, and a handful of other local dignitaries and invited guests. The choir were once again utter stars, and I’m delighted that we’re able to serve in this way. Many thanks to Andrew Finder for penning such an awesome anthem, and to Blue Coat Academy choir for contributing – over 50 voices working together<\/a> produced an awesome sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My collection of gaudy shirts and waistcoats has been retired for another season, as we moved through Advent singing in pubs. The brass band I conduct managed ten gigs in twelve days – surely an achievement worthy of song – and we slipped inexorably towards the big day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carolling in The Wheatsheaf. Photo by Phil Buckley, KARMA TIMES<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And once this was all done, we rested. Merry Christmas one and all. Time for a rest!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a rush! My Christmas season started early this year, with a stint at Chasewater Railway supporting their Hospital Santa Trains. A solid day of standing around freezing while singing carols, before retiring to the tea rooms to warm by the real fire! Then onwards to The Nativity, a wonderful production repeated from our premier […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,41,30,14],"tags":[7,19,136,16,9,18,148,5,149,10,147,150,4],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-music","category-community-music","category-great-barr-brass","category-news","tag-andrew-clayton","tag-carolling","tag-chasewater","tag-christmas","tag-church","tag-december","tag-karma-times","tag-music","tag-phil-buckley","tag-st-matthews-church","tag-the-wheatsheaf","tag-waistcoat","tag-walsall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notejuste.com\/not\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}