They have outlasted Eaton’s which went bankrupt in 1999. They’ve been handled by four to five thousand people on approximately two hundred occasions. They have lost their gloss and suffered lots of damage. They have sparked nostalgic conversations and brought people back to simpler times. Some have been lost or “borrowed.” They have helped children, teens, adults and seasoned souls do what the shepherds and the wise men did.
“They” are the fifty copies of Eaton’s twenty-six song carol sheet, The Songs of Christmas, that I requested in December, 1977. Back then, on a snowy night, the youth group of the Orillia Christian Reformed Church climbed aboard a hay wagon. A tractor pulled us from the church to several nursing homes where we sang carols, accompanied by my guitar. This year, like most years, they will have been passed around six times – at our staff Christmas social, the Seasoned Souls social, our Life Group social, our family Christmas celebration, our church lunch on Dec. 25, and at Marnwood Life Care Centre in Bowmanville where the youth and leaders of our High School Ministries (HSM) entertained two dozen residents who sang many of the carols with us.
Of the original fifty, thirty-one carol sheets have survived. They really look like survivors. They’re yellowed with age. The folds are patched with scotch tape. The edges are brittle. Crease marks abound. Some even have holes in them. If Gary and Evelyn had not insisted on laminating them last year, who knows how many would have disintegrated this year!
The sight of our youth singing from my old Eaton’s carol sheets and then shaking hands with the residents last Thursday filled me with joy. On that hay wagon so many years ago, I never would have guessed that these humble carol sheets “presented with the compliments of Eaton’s” would still be around in 2015 to help us worship Christ, the new-born king.
- Pastor Peter
“They” are the fifty copies of Eaton’s twenty-six song carol sheet, The Songs of Christmas, that I requested in December, 1977. Back then, on a snowy night, the youth group of the Orillia Christian Reformed Church climbed aboard a hay wagon. A tractor pulled us from the church to several nursing homes where we sang carols, accompanied by my guitar. This year, like most years, they will have been passed around six times – at our staff Christmas social, the Seasoned Souls social, our Life Group social, our family Christmas celebration, our church lunch on Dec. 25, and at Marnwood Life Care Centre in Bowmanville where the youth and leaders of our High School Ministries (HSM) entertained two dozen residents who sang many of the carols with us.
Of the original fifty, thirty-one carol sheets have survived. They really look like survivors. They’re yellowed with age. The folds are patched with scotch tape. The edges are brittle. Crease marks abound. Some even have holes in them. If Gary and Evelyn had not insisted on laminating them last year, who knows how many would have disintegrated this year!
The sight of our youth singing from my old Eaton’s carol sheets and then shaking hands with the residents last Thursday filled me with joy. On that hay wagon so many years ago, I never would have guessed that these humble carol sheets “presented with the compliments of Eaton’s” would still be around in 2015 to help us worship Christ, the new-born king.
- Pastor Peter
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