By Team Mangalorean, Oman

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The mood is right
The spirits up
We're here tonight
And that's enough…

Simply having a wonderful Christmas time...

Ghala (Oman), Dec 21: Today the singing of carols at Christmas offers a rare opportunity for people to feel that they are part of a community. It's a wonderful way for the community to celebrate Christmas together. Carols are always great for getting into the Christmas spirit and when you listen to the traditional carols your heart and soul fills with joy that you cannot stop from joining and singing along…and this is exactly what happened today at the Communal Christmas Choir Night. 

To celebrate the Christmas spirit of togetherness and sharing, the Holy Spirit Church Ghala organized carol singing, wherein the different communities of the parish sang in their respective regional languages. To get the parishioners more involved a mini food festival was organized and stalls were put up by the various communities serving their ethnic delicacies in their beautifully decorated food stalls.

With the church grounds all lit, beautiful music playing in the background and the whole place looking very festive one knew for sure Christmas is in the air.  As the people started streaming in the celebration began. Mr. Michael Fernandes the compere for the evening welcomed everyone following which Rev. Fr. Bose Asst parish priest said a solemn prayer. Fr. Raoul then spoke a few words and welcomed the parishioners.

This being the year of the Word of God, a passage from the scriptures was read and then Rev Fr. John Fernandes the Parish Priest read out his Christmas message to the congregation and wished them all a Holy and Blessed Christmas.

The carol singing began with the Children's Choir of the parish. Their sweet voices set the right mood for the evening. The Filipino Choir sang some beautiful foot tapping carols in their native language Tagalog. The Mangaloreans one of the most active communities in the parish were looked very striking on stage with the ladies in gorgeous sarees and the men in traditional Indian wear. They sang a few of the well known Konkani carols.

The Africans looking very majestic in their traditional costumes and their headgear sang carols with the characteristic African drumbeat that had the African ladies swaying to the tunes and the crowd tapping their feet to the best. The other communities that participated in the singing were the Goan, Malayalam, Tamil, Arabic and the Bengali. As each community sang one could see the crowd humming along …just goes to prove that it doesn't really matter which community you belong to, Christmas Carols are sung from deep within the soul.

As the music filled the air so did the aroma of the traditional delicacies from the different stalls. Mangalorean stall had all the Pork Baffath, Chicken Sukha and Sanna lovers thronging it as they bought to eat and take away! The Malayalam Tapioca and Fish, the Tamil Dosa Vada, Filipino Barbecue, Goan 'Lingisa with Pav' and the African dumplings, Pepper soup and Peanut Butter Lamb stew were some of the hot favourites.

It was indeed a fun filled evening, with everything from the choicest of delicacies from different regions to an enchanting choir serenading the crowd with the most enjoyable and melodious carols that kept the people entertained all evening long. All the parishioners were enjoying themselves as they visited the different stalls and nibbled on the food items. It was certainly an evening where celebration and sharing was at its best.

The finale was the much anticipated Raffle Draw the proceeds of which went to the Mother Theresa Poor Fund of the parish. M.V.Jose had some of the little children draw out the winning coupon numbers. Exciting prizes were won by the lucky few.

The beautiful evening drew to a close with the hymn Silent Night Holy Night jointly sung by the different community carol singers. The crowd too sang along thus making it truly a community celebration.

It was a very well organized evening and the committee has to be applauded for their effort. The Communal Christmas Choir Night was indeed a perfect example of 'Unity in Diversity'. All the communities with their different cultures came together as one big family of the parish and celebrated the evening in the right spirit of Christmas.

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