My pastor wants me to move forward with putting together a new adult choir just for Christmas at our parish. YIKES! (The idea is to put out feelers for the future formation of a Sunday choir, and to scout for cantors.) The parish has very few families (in spite of the Catholic school attached to it), and we see 500 to 600 people per weekend. A few years ago there was a sizeable choir here, but it was of a more contemporary flavor, and that choir evacuated the loft when their organist retired. There are ill feelings about the Liturgy being very traditional due to recent bad experiences, but somehow we do still have only boy altar servers, and our current organist keeps the music pretty traditional. Our pastor celebrates the EF often, and is an organist in a former life. It seems that there may be interest among members of other parishes in the area, since there is no decent traditional choir in the area, and a pretty significant hunger for it.

So, I'm looking for ideas for a starting choir's repertoire (even though I don't know yet who will even be in my choir!). We'd like to stick with mostly English, and throw in one or two SEPs. We will only be meeting five or six times before 8 AM Mass Christmas Day, so it has to be pretty basic.

(BTW, please pray for my Children's Choir School. This Tuesday my 21 kids will be singing their very first Mass, the Feast of All Saints, with Dr. Warren's "Dance of the Saints", the SEP Introit, and a Litany of the Saints. I was just informed today that our bishop will be there. The kids are ready, but prayers will be appreciated, especially for our digital organ, which is dying!)