Our year was given the opportunity to go carol singing in Dublin for the Peter McVerry trust. I immediately volunteered, as it seems like lots of fun to go carol singing in Dublin, and it was for a good cause. We were told we would be singing in St Stephen’s Shopping Centre for two hours! I couldn’t wait to go carol singing, as I love Christmas songs and singing!
To prepare for the Carol Singing, a rehearsal was organised a week before we were due to go. Everyone that volunteered to sing gathered in the Music Room on Tuesday the 13th of December. Mrs Owens played the piano to accompany us, and we all sang our hearts out! We were each given a sheet with the words of many well-known Christmas Carols. I was surprised with the amount of people that volunteered to sing, and I must admit I thought we sounded very good while we were rehearsing!
Friday the 16th of December was crazy-jumper day at school! The money collected from this crazy-jumper day would go to the Laura Lynn foundation, and it was organised by the Student Council. However, we had to wear our uniforms for the Carol singing. We only get one Christmas jumper day a year, so I still wore my christmas jumper to school, even if it was only for the first three classes! I understood that we needed to wear our school uniform while singing so people would recognise the school we’re from, though it would have been nice to wear Christmas Jumpers!
We hopped off the bus at St Stephen’s Shopping Centre at around 12pm. It must have looked quite funny, to see around 30 Gerard’s students walking into the shopping centre wearing Christmas hats and carrying sheets of lyrics on a Friday afternoon! I was very excited as well as slightly nervous! I was a little worried that we wouldn’t sing loud enough, or that people would just walk by without listening to our carols or wouldn’t give us money for the Peter McVerry trust. After we put away our bags and arranged ourselves into two lines, we started singing ‘Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ , and from the first note we all sang together I immediately was reassured and knew this was going to be a fun and successful two hours! We had a prime spot in the shopping centre, lots of people walked by throughout the period of time we were singing, also many people watched us sing from the second floor. We attracted a lot of attention, families with little children would stop and listen to us sing, the little children would often sing along with ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and ‘Jingle Bells’ which was heart-warming! Some people even recorded us singing on their phones! Who knows we might have started a new hashtag #gerardschristmascarols ?! We took turns holding the buckets for money, and lots of people stopped to give us money. One individual even gave us a €50 note(we must have been very good!).
We raced through the Christmas carols on our sheet, and ended up repeating the songs at least three times! We got a little fed-up, so we tried to include some other songs. Last night at the Christmas Bazaar, Darcy and Jeremy sang ‘Fairytale of New York’ which was a big success. Since we had both of them with us, and Jack was able to play the song on the guitar, it was obvious we simply had to do it! It was amazing, lots of people stopped to watch and listen, as almost everyone knows at least the chorus of the song! Having the guitar really made the song, we were all glad we did it. Then we attempted at singing ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ however we only knew about half the words, and gave up after the chorus!
After all the Christmas Carolling we were given a reward of 45 minutes to go around Dublin. Carla, Emma, Anna, Eleanor and went to ‘Yum Thai’ to get a quick and tasty lunch. Then we walked through Grafton street and ate our lunch in the shopping centre. My meal seemed to be especially hot, and made my mouth feel like it was on fire and I had tears in my eyes! I drank water but it only made it worse, so I quickly got a hot chocolate, as apparently milk is supposed to help with spicy food! The 45 minutes went so fast, and before I knew it we were on the bus heading back to St Gerard’s.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day, it was a wonderful experience to sing Christmas carols, and have people dancing or singing along in the middle of a busy shopping centre! We raised 1000 euros for the Peter McVerry Trust in 2 hours, which is an amazing achievement!!
If I were to do this again, I would bring the words to more Christmas songs, as after a while we got a little tired of the carols on our sheets! So I would bring more lyrics, and encourage everyone to wear a Christmas hat, not only a few people. Also I would like to wear Christmas jumpers, as it would add to the Christmas atmosphere!
In conclusion I had another fun and exciting day out in Dublin!
If I were to do this again, I would bring the words to more Christmas songs, as after a while we got a little tired of the carols on our sheets! So I would bring more lyrics, and encourage everyone to wear a Christmas hat, not only a few people. Also I would like to wear Christmas jumpers, as it would add to the Christmas atmosphere!
In conclusion I had another fun and exciting day out in Dublin!