The Frozen Caroling Jew

In which a half-Jew from Jersey sings goyim carols and freezes his little dradel off.

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I got roped in to singing with the “Starlight Carolers” (not my name), with whom I’ve been “singing” at the Biltmore Estate, at the lighting of the Menorah… er, Christmas Tree in Fletcher, NC, where we used to live and my parents- and sister-in-law still do.

It was a lot like the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, except that

• instead of Al Roker, we had some woman named Cheyanne who kept calling us the “Starlight Singers,” which made me feel very cheap
• instead of Tiffany ornaments, there were big plastic stars
• instead of the Harlem Boys Choir, there was, well, us. The Starlight Singers.

Actually, it was nothing like the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.

Our normal director, who organized the entire group and usually both gives us starting notes from a pitch pipe and sings tenor, so we other tenors have someone who actually knows the harmony to follow, was playing trumpet in the accompanying brass ensemble. So we hunted for our own notes, and struggled to hear ourselves as the bitter swirling wind whipped the words from our lips… and toward the back of the stage, away from the crowd.

It all sort of felt like one of those scenes from one of those movies where a high school band plays, and they’re really not all that good, but the crowd knows how hard they played, so they clap anyway.

At one point, just as we were starting “Rudolph,” my cell phone rang — a former colleague and good friend. For kicks, I picked up, said nothing, and we started singing. His comment after: “What the eff was that dreadful caterwauling?”

I’m sure he was just kidding.