Though advent doesn't begin for another four days, I'm in the mood for a little Christmas music, so I'm jumping the season a bit with this Jonal. The Youtube link to this wonderful event was sent to me by Mary Lou Ciprich Ford, in an email from Nanty Glo earlier today, and though the date of this performance was just October 30, the Youtube video has already had more than a million hits, a fact that warms my heart. I've seen another very popular Youtube video of a similar performance, in a train station in Belgium, of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. Watching it, you hear the introductory music first and a few people begin to sing along, and soon almost the whole population of the station is singing, but it's not apparent that those are professional performers. This time, the performance of Handel's "Halleluia Chorus" from The Messiah is performed by the Philadelphia Opera Company's Choristers, though I'm sure many of the shoppers in the former John Wanamaker department store (now Macy's) in downtown Philadelphia could not resist joining in, as I'm sure I would have.

You may remember from nearly two years ago when I featured three of my favorite Christmas songs in a Jonal that the "Halleluia Chorus" was one of them. It came to play that role in my Christmases when I was living in the Philadelphia area from 1964-67, because the choir of the church I attended then always put on the Christmas portion of The Messiah as a highlight of the season. So it's especially poignant to me that this is coming from downtown Philly which was always the focus of our Christmas shopping attention at that time.

— Webmaster Jon Kennedy