Caroling Begins

Our Filipino-American Community of Corpus Christi begins its Christmas Caroling today. Our first engagement for this year is at Birchwood Nursing Home in Old Bridge, NJ. Christmas Caroling has been a tradition of the group for many years. Dina and I were invited to join about 4 years ago, and so we have been doing this for 4 years now. The members of the group are mostly from East Brunswick and surrounding towns like Spotswood, Old Bridge and South River. The group is composed mainly of old and middle-aged couples. I think Dina and I are the youngest couple in the group. There are about 15 couples who are committed to the caroling. We start practice usually on the 3rd Tuesday of November and every Tuesday thereafter. We sing the traditional christmas songs that are very familiar to everyone. After all, we are not professional singers. We just love to share whatever small talents we have to the residents of the nursing homes within our area. We enjoy doing it. It is a lot of fun especially when we see happy smiling faces in the audience. We love it when we see the residents clap and sing with us. It surely gives us great pleasure, and I am sure this is why the group keeps doing it year after year. I am sure we bring good tidings of great joy to these people. Next Sunday, we have four engagements - three nursing homes is East Brunswick and one in Old Bridge.

Here is a picture of the group practicing a song at Eddie Sideco’s home (see if you can spot Dina).

Dina, Zoe and me at the lobby of the Birchwood Nursing Home after our caroling performance there.