The Singing Christmas Tree

The 38th annual Singing Christmas Tree of Sweet Home, Oregon, is a free Christmas musical concert held in the Sweet Home High School’s auditorium on December 6th, 7th, and 8th of 2019.  The program starts at 7:30pm on Friday and Saturday, and at 3pm on Sunday. The concert consists of forty singers and over twenty Christmas songs, including audience sing along songs such as “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Away in a Manger,” and other Christmas favorites. Sweet Home Children’s Choir will be performing as well, singing four songs before joining the Singing Christmas Tree Choir for a fifth song. Majority of the singers are from Sweet Home, but some are from Lebanon, Albany, and Brownsville. Singers in the tree range in age from twelve to ninety-four.
Sue Olson, the program chairman and bough coordinator, as well as alto singer, can hardly contain her excitement for another year of Sweet Home’s Singing Christmas Tree. Olson has been involved with the program since it’s fourth year, when her eldest son played in a brass quintet. “I was completely mesmerized by the lights, by the music —just everything. I just knew I wanted to be apart of it,” Olson explains. The Christmas tree itself is handmade by Olson and the support crew. “They’re real boughs. Cascade Timber Consulting trims alongside the roadsides, then members pick them up for us and bring them down. We’re very lucky the fire marshal let’s us use real boughs, we have to spray them all with fire retardant beforehand,” Olson says while demonstrating how the crew weaves the boughs through wire to make the tree.

  Board members meet throughout the year in order to organize the finest program possible for their audience. Rehearsals, the making of the tree, and decorating begins in late November.

Second year music director and conductor for Sweet Home's Singing Christmas tree, John Kluttz, leads the choir through practice in the decorated and lighted Christmas tree for the first time, days before their first performance. 

During rehearsal, singers in the tree practice using candles while singing "Candle in Your Heart."

Judy Stevens, the Singing Christmas Tree's rehearsal accompanist, is assisted by a page turner during practice several days before the first performance of the 38th annual Singing Christmas Tree. Bill Langdon will be the program accompanist with his son, Michael Langdon, as page turner for the performances on December 6th, 7th, and 8th.

Week 10 Forum

The best photo(s), I think, I took for this class were the photos I took of the Poetry Club. They stood out because it was much more difficult than I thought it would be getting good photos in an environment where they're really just sitting and reading poems the majority of the time. I learned that it's possible tot get good photos and stories even with "lack of action."(Poetry Club photos attached below) My photography skills were little to none at the beginning of the term, but I've improved way more than I thought I would. I know how to actually hold a camera now, and I've learned how to approach subjects and actually make people comfortable, even thought I'm there with an intimidating camera and seemingly endless questions. At first, especially with the first HUMANS OF LBCC assignments, I was super nervous and didn't even know how I should properly introduce myself without scaring them away.
Week 1 Forum "Goals":

My goals for this class:

To gain experience and knowledge in photography, and to get some of my photos published in the Commuter.

 I would still like to improve on my photography skills even more, but I have gained much more knowledge and experience in photography and journalism than I had before. I knew almost nothing. I also had a few of my photos and captions featured in the Commuter, so yay! I did achieve my goals for this class . . . eek!

Book Report

“It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War,” by Lynsey Addario was an educational, and thrilling read for me. I found the “Women Are Casualties of Their Birthplace” chapter to be the most riveting story. Addario’s telling of the African women’s traumatic stories and their strength even through their horrific experiences was heart wrenching and eye opening. The women survived kidnapping, rape, contracting fatal illnesses, and bearing their rapists children only to escape and find their husbands/families unaccepting of them for being taken against their will, and in turn suffered abandonment of the worst kind. I look up to Addario’s passion to show raw, unfiltered stories to the public through her photos. I admire her sense of moral responsibility when pursuing war zones -- she empathizes with the people and their stories, and respects the cultures. If I were in her place, I hope that I would have half the courage, empathy, and righteousness she holds. Although she’s sometimes shy and tentative with subjects, her passion for her photos always came through, she managed to get her shots regardless. I was able to use that this term. Like many others, I’m also sometimes shy when it comes to shooting subjects, and looking at where Lynsey Addario is today is inspiring. She has received international awards for her work, she’s a New York Times bestselling author, she’s considered one of the most influential photographers from the last quarter of a century, and much, much more. I liked her work with transgender prostitutes in New York in the late nineties, before she was a war photographer. She showed them as is in her photos, and they were obviously comfortable with her. I appreciated her open mindedness, and I also loved how they referred to her as “The Camera Lady.” (Pictures shown in Chapter 4: “You, American, Are Not Welcome Here Anymore”) But my favorite photos of her’s were the images that went with the stories that stuck with me: of the African women Bibiane, Vumila, and Mapendo. The photos are of the women in their homes, emotional, straight-faced, and suffering from illness, but resilient and accepting of Addario with her questions and camera. 

Bibiane, 28, South Kivu
lynseyaddario.com

What resonated with me the most in Addario’s memoir was when she wrote, “The women also put my life of privilege, opportunity, independence, and freedom into perspective. As an American woman, I was spoiled: to work, to make decisions, to be independent, to have relationships with men, to feel sexy, to fall in love, to fall out of love, to travel. I was only twenty-six, and I had already enjoyed a lifetime of new experiences.” I think it really puts it into perspective for most of her readers. It’s easy for me to forget how very privileged I truly am as a young American woman. I can receive an education (including higher education), I’m blessed with endless opportunities, I can marry for love -- if I want to, I can travel independently, and just have rights and freedom.