The Gift Of Music

No more. Just no more bits of plastic.  I refuse to spend our hard earned pennies on any of the tat that is plugged so regularly on children’s TV channels.  I can’t bring myself to fork out for breakable items that will soon be strewn across a bedroom floor.  I spend an estimated 70% of my day sorting the same 5 jigsaw puzzles into the correct boxes only for them to be thrown across the living room again by a two year old who has no intention of completing them.  Enough.

This year we are concentrating on sharing.  They will have one toy to share between them and then there will be books, films and games.  Things that we can read, watch and play together and most importantly there will be music.  We share the love of music in our house…in the car too.  Jack White’s most recent album is the CD of choice for car journeys at the moment.  It used to be our album (Rumpus In My Rompers) back in the summer but that is now reserved for indoors where one can dance. We are also Christmas crazy now and many an afternoon is spent bouncing on the sofa to the Christmas album.  I am always entertained by Dean Martin reeling out a long list of reindeer names in a cockney accent.  I think this is his idea of how Father Christmas might sound.  I did actually meet a Cockney Santa in a Grotto once but that is a subject for another Christmas.

Music will be a big part of our Christmas celebrations and not just because we write music for kids.  It gets everyone in the mood, brings back lovely memories of childhood Christmas celebrations, gets people singing, sharing in something that connects them.  That is what I love about Christmas in general, we are all working towards the same goal now, all preparing to settle in for the day with our family and friends and share food, gifts and fun times.  I love it.  Your hearts will be warmed by your favourite Christmas film, your cockles will be warmed by the eggnog but always, always have a backdrop of music.

This year we will start the day with full on Christmas tunes to get everyone over-excited then we might crack out a few classical tunes to eat to.

We recently released a Christmas song for kids to remind them of the Christmas Rules, tongues were firmly in cheeks as my husband did his first bit of Christmas rapping.  We are pre-empting any Christmas upset by reminding our kids that Christmas is not all about the presents, they must be grateful for anything they do receive and never, NEVER open presents that are meant for someone else.  We know from experience that music can contain powerful, memorable messages which is why we wrote our kids album in the first place.

All of the musicals we write for schools have facts and information that will be remembered for years to come, purely because we set them to song.  So music will continue to be a priority in our house and I won’t be apologising to the neighbours.  Make music top of the Christmas list this year and have a very memorable Christmas.

Angela & Andrew have worked in the field of youth theatre for many years.  Angela ran her own theatre school and now works as a freelance tutor, director and choreographer.  Andrew has a background in rock music but was invited to play the role of the man eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors and has had an interest in musical theatre ever since. Together they run Lucky Bucket Productions providing schools and theatre groups across the country with original shows for performance.