December brought us a busy month of holiday handbell performances. After last year’s quiet holiday season, we launched back into live performances with a vengeance in the last few weeks of 2021.

Back to the Kerstmarkt-Holland

Our first seasonal performance was at this year’s Kerstmarkt in downtown Holland. This was our fifth time performing at this European-style Christmas market, and we always enjoy it. It was surprisingly cold this year, and we were thankful for the loan of a heater (thanks, Shady Side Farm!). Having said that, this event is always a highlight of our holiday season, whatever the weather. The market is a little slice of Europe here in West Michigan, and there are interesting things to buy, all made locally, and twinkling lights to add a festive atmosphere.

Here’s a video of us at the Kerstmarkt!

Christmas Handbell Program for Seniors

We performed handbell duets at several senior communities this year. Our program of holiday handbell music generally lasts around 40-45 minutes. We played a selection of Christmas carols, some familiar and some less well-known, and on several occasions we had time for a question-and-answer session with the audience. It’s always fun to talk about the history of our instruments and the techniques used in playing them. We also get asked a lot of questions about how we met, and how we ended up in Michigan!

The other thing we enjoy doing, time permitting, is demonstrating an 8-bell piece on handchimes. They have a very pure tone, and lend themselves well to Christmas carols. Our favourite demonstration piece this year was In the Bleak Midwinter, which worked well on chimes, and proved to be popular with our audiences.

We were also able to demonstrate our set of antique Taylor bells from England, at the Ringing in the Holidays event at Hudsonville Library. Playing these bells is more challenging for us, because the leather handles are more floppy than the handles on the bells we usually use, so we tend to use them to demonstrate some of our slower Christmas pieces – like Away in a Manger (Cradle Song), or the Dutch carol Hoe Leit dit Kindeke. It’s interesting to be able to show before-and-after photos of these handbells, which we bought from eBay and sent over to Ireland for restoration. Here’s how they look now:

Holiday handbell performances in (not so) far-off places

This year, we drove to Kalamazoo for a couple of our holiday bookings. We were thankful that the weather stayed mild all through December, so driving around wasn’t a problem at all. We enjoyed playing at a corporate holiday party, where we played an hour of “background music”, then gave a 30-minute duet performance. As it was a party, we handed out some handchimes to willing volunteers, and they had a go at playing Jingle Bells. Oh, what fun!

We went back to Burcham Hills, in East Lansing, where we’d played Christmas music outdoors at their socially-distant Festival of Lights last year. This year we were happy to be indoors, and we gave a two-hour performance during their Ho-Ho-Holiday Open House event.

Performing with the Zeeland Community Band

We were delighted to be able to perform in concert with our friends at the Zeeland Community Band again. After a two-year break, it was exciting to see how much this talented ensemble has grown, both in number and in skill. It was a wonderful concert, with a wide variety of Christmas and holiday tunes, and an appreciative audience. It’s been noticeable to us how people have rejoiced at having the opportunity to hear (and see) live music performances again.

Christmas Eve worship services

We concluded our busy month of holiday handbell performances with four Christmas Eve services. We played in the three services at Ridge Point Community Church, where we’d last played in December 2017. It was good to be back! We played a pre-service handbell prelude, and joined their talented band for Lincoln Brewster’s Miraculum in each of the services. Didn’t our handbells look pretty under those lights?

We finished our Christmas performance season with the 11:00pm service at Third Reformed Church, here in Holland. We played a 15-minute prelude, and added handbell parts to several of the hymns and the Silent Night organ postlude. After our busy day, and a hectic month of holiday handbell performances, the late service was exactly what we needed. As Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day, we went home for some sleep!

Thank you so much for a wonderful 2021 holiday season. If you booked us for a handbell duet performance, we’re grateful to you. If you came to one of our public events and stopped to listen, or if you offered encouragement or kind comments about our music, please be assured that your words meant a lot to us. To everyone who bought handbell music from Choraegus, or ordered a copy of The Bass Ringer’s Notebook – thank you. And if you connected with us on our Facebook page or YouTube channel, or shared our music videos on social media, we’re grateful to you too. We look forward to sharing lots more handbell music with you in 2022!