our musical advent calendar, day 08

Inspired by Pinterest, Anna wanted to do an advent calendar. And inspired by Advent Conspiracy, she wanted to make it about presence, not presents. Ian had a brilliant idea to use music. We each picked out some of our favorite Christmas songs and will be counting down with festive tunes.

day 08. "Carol of the Bells/Christmas Eve" - David Crowder Band, Oh For Joy

I can't remember the first time I heard the rocked out version of "Carol of the Bells" as performed by the Trans Syberian Orchestra. I just remember it was the first time I heard a traditional song converted to rock, and I loved (and continue to love) it. And ever since littlest/biggest brother Caleb picked up the electric guitar (and got really really good at it), I can't help but envision him, tall and dredlocked, ripping out sweet licks Guitar-Hero style, whenever I hear songs like this. So the song has sweet licks AND and warm fuzzies for family. Can it get better? Yes.

David Crowder Band covered this in an encore at the show we went to in New York back in October, and it was possibly more guitar melting than the Trans Syberian Orchestra version. So to recap: sweet licks, warm fuzzies, David Crowder Band humor + guitar melting. Christmas win.

—Anna

*Since there aren't any lyrics in this version (only sweet licks/guitar melting), I'm transcribing David Crowder's intro. He's funny.

How's everybody doing? Y'all okay? (crowd cheers)

I bumped into a friend of mine two days ago and he said, "You know David, I'm really a bit sad inside 'cause Christmas is over. It's only one day a year, of 365."

I said, "You know, that's just crazy talk. It's actually 12 days a year." That's right. The twelve days of... you know what I'm talking about. All leading up to Epiphany, moment the magis brought Christ Child gifts.

So, we'll have a little fun tonight. Sing a little carols. No wassail. We've got good friends. We've got an arena where hockey is normally played, right? And if I'm doing my math right, Epiphany doesn't come until January 6th. So you know what that means, kids. It's still Christmas time.

*UPDATE* They made a sweet music video to this: they're nutcrackers. You don't want to miss it.