Hot Springs school celebrates holidays with music

HOT SPRINGS – The Hot Springs School began celebrating the holiday season as the students performed a variety of holiday tunes.

Ericka Greico, music teacher at Hot Springs School, said the kids worked very hard to put the concert together. She felt the kids did phenomenally for how much time they had to prepare. They began preparing the program almost immediately after Thanksgiving; while they had learned music theory and the basics of singing throughout the year, they only had a month to learn and prepare everything.

“I’m so proud of them,” Greico said.

She was especially proud given how hard everyone had to work and how well the community came together to prepare the program. While the music classes tried to meet for a little time each week, it fell mostly to the other teachers and parents to ensure the kids knew their lyrics. Greico sent CDs with the music and songs to the teachers and home with the students to help them prepare. 

“We wanted to do something a little different,” she said of their selections. “We’ve done the traditional thing for a few years now, so we put our own little twist on it.” 

She recalled some of the students’ work almost made it into the concert. According to the instructor, the eighth grader’s creative writing class wrote lyrics for four songs, which were considered for the concert. They could not pick just one song to include, though, and ended up going with another option.

Greico recalled the students also helped with the decorations and planning out the space; one student noted the lack of a snowman in any of the decorations and recommended bringing in a giant construction paper snowman that nearly went from floor to ceiling in the old gym.

“We had so much fun looking at what they did,” Greico said of the decorations.

Music was not the only entertainment. Between a few performances, two students came out to tell Christmas jokes. These were somewhat corny jokes in the vain of groan-inducing puns and cheap gags, but fun ones.

“We wanted to go a little laughy-taffy style, it is a children’s concert,” Greico said.

At the end of the concert, Santa Claus also paid a visit to the students to sit and talk to the kids about what they wanted for Christmas. He set up at a chair on the center stage and the kids lined up to go up one side of the stage to talk to Santa.

“Santa is so awesome,” Greico said. “He visits Hot Springs and our Christmas concert every year; I’m glad he takes the time out.”