A Ukrainian Christmas Carol

Susan and Erin sharing the headphones

A few weeks ago my cousin, Erin, asked if I would be willing to work with her to create a special Christmas gift for our Baba (that's our 97 year-old Ukrainian grandmother and there's a more recent pix of her here).  

Erin doesn't live in Victoria so we planned to get together when she came home for some pre-Christmas visiting this week.  We had a couple of hours to explore different instruments and our voices and this is what we came up with.  Erin is playing ukulele, I'm on guitar and we're both singing.  Of course, our families are loving it:).  

We presented this song on CD to Baba last week just before Christmas.   Baba immediately began singing along to the recording in a strong voice.  It was moving and wonderful!  It seemed her singing was coming from deep inside her...truly magical.

This is a song I grew up hearing my grandmother, her sisters and their daughters sing.  It seems to embody a connectedness between the generations for me and it holds a special place in my heart for sure.  Neither Erin or I speak Ukrainian so we recorded it as best we could and it turned out to be the perfect way for our grandmother to sing along to.

I am sharing it with you along with a wish that 2012 be filled with as many beautiful,   c r e a t i v e,   musical,  meaningful,  festive!, celebratory moments you can possibly squeeze in!  

Happy New Year!

How Big is My Christmas Parachute?

JoAnn Jordan recently asked me, "How big is your parachute?"
I finally got the tape measure out...

My parachute (purchased over the phone and shipped from a military surplus store in Seattle, Washington) is 14 feet in diameter.

Last post I wrote about how much I love my parachute and in the last newsletter I shared several of my favorite parachute activities.

I have had some happy feedback about the parachute activities from those of you who are part of the newsletter group.  If you are not receiving the newsletter yet, you can sign up here!

Christmas Parachute

 Our parachute just settling its delicate self.

I love my parachute.

It's not the typical institutional parachute that everyone seems to use with children these days.  The typical ones are nice, of course, but I find them too heavy and not versatile enough to use with very young and also sensory-sensitive children.

Ours is a real, old-fashioned silk parachute purchased at an Army & Navy Surplus store.  

• It's white, 
• light-weight, 
• translucent for peeking through,
• easy to store, 
• easy to hold and 
• still strong enough for our uses with young children in class.

I will be sending out the December newsletter soon.  It will list some festive ways we use our parachute at Musicalia.  If you haven't signed up for your own copy of the newsletter, you can do that here!