It was beginning to look — and sound — a lot like Christmas at Collier United Church in Barrie today.
Members of Bravado!, a local show choir, took over the stage at the downtown church for their annual Christmas show, Mistletones, over the weekend, with two evening shows as well as a high-energy Saturday afternoon matinee called A Festive Family Affair, designed for the young and young at heart.
“Every year around this time we do three concerts and this year it’s called Mistletones and we have a show on Friday and Saturday night and then we like to do something for the kids,” Alexis Guindon told BarrieToday outside of the church’s nave where the choir was merrily singing The Christmas Can-Can in the background. “Santa is always here and we have a craft hour before the show. Then we bring the kids into church and we do singing and dancing and … snowball fighting. We try to keep it fun and inclusive. We try to encourage parents to come out and bring their kids.”
Guindon said the choir, which practices out of the Midhurst United Church and currently boasts approximately 30 members, has been putting this event on for more than a decade.
“It’s always a lot of fun,” she said. “The Collier Street Church does cookies and nibblies for the kids and one of the members of our board is a retired school teacher so she puts out the craft tables and … they get a little bag and (the kids) carry their little bag into the church.”
The goal of the concern, she said, is to kick off the Christmas season in a fun way.
“We usually have it at the end of November. It’s a tradition for our families to come out and kick it off,” she said. “It’s very inspiring and really nice to look into the audience and see their face, see them smiling and having fun … because that’s what Christmas is all about.”
In addition to Christmas classics like Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Up On the Housetop, the concert even included a special visit from Santa and Olaf.
The evening show, she said, was expected to be just as fun, with the audience being serenaded with a mix of traditional carols like O Holy Night and Away in a Manger, alongside modern favourites such as Christmas at the Movies and another lively rendition of The Christmas Can-Can.
