I know some of you may be jealous that you weren't able to attend the Willow Springs Relief Society Enrichment Christmas Dinner and Program. So, for those of you who weren't blessed enough to be there this post is for you.
About a month ago I was informed by my dear friend and blogger buddy that she'd signed us up to do a musical number for the Enrichment Christmas dinner. No prob. It's not uncommon for us to have sing-a-longs and flute-a-longs when we're hanging at my place. So I knew we could pull off something great.
We take sharing our talents very seriously so we waited until the night before the performance to decide what we would do. Conkey came over and we ran through a few Christmas tunes, piano-flute duet style. Nothing seemed right... nothing. We were a little distraught. So, to clear our heads we had a spontaneous sing-a-long. And then, it happened.
Out of nowhere Conkey broke out into the Relief Society Lady voice. You know the one- the high pitched, uber-vibrato, old lady singing? Classic!
We laughed our way through a few songs and then it hit us. What if we were to sing like Relief Society Ladies for our musical number? The comedic value would be priceless! Yes! We would do it! Toss out the flute and the piano... We would share our vocal talents!
Now, in order to truly magnify our vocal talents we would need just the right costumes. (Un)Fortunately, I didn't have a denim jumper and a cheesy Christmas sweater in my wardrobe. My only hope was Goodwill.
With just an hour before the big debut of the RSLs I stopped at Goodwill. It must have been providence because the first thing I saw was a beautiful Christmas turtleneck. Now if only I could find a denim jumper. The gods were smiling that day because not only did I find a denim jumper, but it was 80% off dresses day! So, I got it for $2. I almost started jumping up and down with glee right in the checkout line. I also found a stunning sweater for Conkey. A fellow costume shopper at the store described it best: "It looks like someone spilled glitter on astroturf!"
I saved my jumping up and down with glee for when I got to Conkey's house and showed her my finds from Goodwill. She was as ecstatic as I was! In addition to the denim catastrophes we donned we also pinned on gigantic Christmas broaches (which were really just Christmas ornaments that I'd never actually put on a tree). It was all pretty brilliant. Naturally we needed stage names as well. We were totally on the same wavelength, that Conkey and I. She was Sister Johnson and I was Sister Anderson. It just felt so natural.
When we got to the shindig we suddenly questioned our judgment and both got a nervous knot in our stomachs. After 3 lovely and quite spiritual musical numbers it was our turn... there we were to totally kill the spirit of the evening. But we knew what we had prepared was just too good not to share.
So, we busted through the curtains and pulled out phrases like "we're just thrilled to be here" and "you sisters are treasures (trayzhurs) beyond measure (mayzhur)" all in our finest Utah accents.
We asked for audience participation as we sang "Carol of the Bells" in our most stunning Relief Society voices. It truly was the greatest gift we could have given!
I can say without hesitation that this was the most brilliant performance of my life. Rest assured that the Relief Society Ladies will return. Perhaps the next performance will be a pop medley at the next ward talent show. Any requests??
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