For one family of Nashville musicians, the cacophony of the Christmas season feels more joyful than ever

Listen to the audio version of this personal essay above.

I married a church organist and choir director. Usually, our whole December is occupied with an overlapping cluster of sounds that would make Charles Ives proud.

Like that Christmas tree that doesn’t have a theme, it’s just a hodgepodge of Christmas-looking ornaments — but in sound. My husband directs the church choir. I sing along, play my fair share of instruments, host classical radio in Louisville, and teach young piano students. Plus, now our son is in his own set of choirs and has picked up the trumpet.

It’s busy. Really, really busy. 

I spent a decade making jokes about never having Christmas or Easter off as a family. But with every joke, I took for granted that it would always be that way. 2020’s restrictions tilted my usual season off of its busy axis.

Last year, all of December was digital concerts and prerecorded church services. We didn’t have any messy moments or rushing from one thing to the next — we were simply on camera. And when “cut” was called, there was a deafening silence.

This year, it was a moment at the end of the dress rehearsal for Handel’s “Messiah” when I realized, with relief, that Christmas would feel more like Christmas again. As we tried to wrap things up, the trumpet section blared, interrupting our notes as they practiced that one specific spot they needed to get right. 

It’s the kind of thing that might have been annoying before, but not this year. This year it left us all smiling.

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Before that performance of “Messiah,” there was a kind of question of whether people would come. Would people return to live music? But, wow, did they ever.

Now my senses are in overload at least once a day. It’s not just that live music is loud, and I can’t use a volume button. I also notice the rumbling of the pipe organ under my feet. I smell the flowers on the altar in the church service. I feel the heat from candles, watching the purple ones melting into my little metal advent wreath when we light it and sing together at home.

And I let myself notice it all.

I thought I appreciated it before — and I did. I love this season. But I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge waking up on Christmas morning now. I see it, and like Scrooge, I say to myself: “Good — I haven’t missed it.”

Colleen Phelps is the voice behind WPLN’s podcast Classically Speaking. She will host Nashville Opera’s performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors on Christmas Eve at 7 p.m. on WPLN-HD2 or 91classical.org.