CAROLING AROUND THE PIANO

A fond memory I have from my youth for Christmas is the family gathered around my mom at the piano singing the many beautiful Christmas songs. I have translated that wonderful memory into my Primary version of

Caroling Around the Piano.

I've done this before in my Primary and the kids have loved it, so I plan on doing it again this year after we practice the Christmas song we will be singing next Sunday in Sacrament Meeting.

"Caroling Around the Piano" is pretty easy to do. Just roll the piano to the front of the room, if possible, and have the children gather around it. I prefer the JR to sit around the piano and the SR to stand. If you prefer, you could just have the children stay in their seats. And then we sing. That's basically it. I have used some different methods in determining which songs to sing to add some extra fun. Here are a few ways:

• Have some ornaments on a little tree to pick from or gift bags/boxes with songs or a nativity set to select and put together on a table.
• Let each class choose a favorite Primary Christmas song or Hymn. I do this for SR but not JR.
• This year I am going to have different bells with tags on them with a song and a way to shake the Jingle Bell Jingles found here as we sing for JR. For this activity I don't use the Jingle Bells for SR since they will be using the Christmas songbooks I made.

For SR we use my Christmas songbooks that I made years ago for my family caroling time. You could use Hymnals, but it is quite a chore to round enough of them up. To make these, I made copies of Christmas Primary songs and hymns from the LDS web site found here for Primary songs and here for Hymns, for each book I wanted to make. I have also typed up the words for some secular songs for the back of the book that we sometimes sing with the young kiddies in my family but I do not use/sing them in Primary since I don't feel Sunday church is an appropriate place for singing these type of songs especially since they are not church approved. I also made a cover sheet and divider sheets to separate the Primary songs from the hymns as well as the more secular songs. I've included the file I used for the dividers in case you don't want to make your own. (I can't believe I still had the file.) These books have held up really well over the years and I just gently remind the kids to treat them respectfully so they can last a long time. I have about 30+ of these made since I use them for when my extended family gets together at Christmas, which sometimes can be quite the crowd, so there are plenty to go around the Primary. 

For this year, I want to close singing time with the lights off and use a lamp for some ambient lighting while we sing "Silent Night". As an extra special treat, my pianist will bring her guitar to play. She is such a great pianist and she tinkers with the guitar and is willing to strum a few chords for us while we sing. I'm hoping that will set a reverent mood so I can leave them my testimony of the wonderful gift our Heavenly Father gave us when he sent Jesus Christ to be our Savor.

Ahhh! What would Christmas be without Christmas Caroling! 

I wish you all a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Songbook Inserts