what I played

 I don't take piano lessons any more (My teacher had largely retired from it - I actually heard from her recently, she e-mailed me to let me know how her life was going - the house she and her husband live in had had some problems (damage from the tornado, and then some flooding) and they are in the process of moving about an hour away, so she won't be teaching any more). But I still practice. 

At Christmas, I play Christmas songs. I have several books of arrangements that are "intermediate to advanced intermediate" (which I suspect is all the better I'll ever get, unless I make the time to find a new teacher - and I don't really have time right now). But I do play for myself.

This year, there were three things I worked on.

First, a "light jazz" (so - "not too weird," as my mother would say) arrangement of Holst's setting of "In The Bleak Midwinter")

This is a different Keveren arrangement (he has two, I did the other one) but it's similar. It's a nice carol for piano.

The other two I've worked most on have been from movies

Ignore this guy's hamminess, and listen to the playing, this is the arrangement of "We Need a Little Christmas" that I've been working on. I can't play it quite that fast though. 

 It's fun to play, though, and it's not too difficult.

And from that same book (Christmas at the Movies), I practiced Somewhere in My Memory. Here's a nice instrumental setting of it with gorgeous photos from Quebec:

And here's someone playing an arrangement something like what I played:

I play it a little bit faster though. It's funny to me that such a lovely and evocative piece comes from a movie that people mostly remember for the slapstick bits. (But: first watching it as an adult, I feel the theme of abandonment and being left behind and thrown on your own resources, and there is a little pathos there). 

It's nice to see the various people who have filmed themselves playing. I don't think I'm good enough and I doubt I'd ever have the confidence to. I didn't even like filming myself teaching during pandemic times; it made me horribly self-conscious.