Singing Christmas Tree Today & Tomorrow!

Editor's Note: Since Here's Greenwood! didn't make it out this month due to an editor's illness, The Delta Dirt will play host to this piece with an ending quote by DD founder Thomas Gregory:

First Presbyterian Singing Christmas Tree

On Dec. 17 and 18 at 7 p.m. families will gather again downtown for one of their favorite Christmas traditions – the First Presbyterian Church Singing Christmas Tree. About 100 choristers and several thousand lights from the human tree will ignite Greenwood with holiday spirit for the 27th year in a row.

Singers will begin stacking the 20-foot scaffold, twinkling with silver tinsel, while entertaining with secular Christmas tune. Once in place, they will serenade with songs dedicated to the story of the birth of Christ and sometimes invite the crowd to sing along. The outdoor spectacle, set up in the parking lot between two of the church's buildings, always attracts a few hundred people, even in uncomfortable weather. Although for heavy rains, they move inside the sanctuary.

“For someone coming from St. Louis, I've been amazed at the turnout,” said Ray Smithee, the church music director. Smithee, who gained an undergraduate degree in organ performance from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and a master's in music ministry from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, will complete his third year in Greenwood in January.

A crowd favorite, Smithee said, is "Night of Silence." “They had done this long before I came, and it's just of those songs that has become a favorite of people here in the church. It's the one song I could never not do and be here the next year,” he laughed.

It begins: “Cold are the people, Winter of life, We tremble in shadows this cold endless night, Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping, Flowers that will echo the sunrise, Fire of hope is our only warmth, Weary, its flame will be dying soon,” and gradually points the listener to the guiding lights of Christ.

“I think it's really a song of hope, looking toward all that the coming of Christ brings to people. It kind of mirrors the [Old Testament] theme of people being in the dark because they didn't have the whole story of Christianity,” Smithee said.

Soloist Connie Black believes she has participated as a singer in the Christmas tree at First Presbyterian every single year and often sings “O Holy Night” or “Gesu Bambino.” She evens remembers singing the year she was pregnant with her daughter. “Usually, I go up to the top of the Christmas tree, but that year I just sang it from the second row,” she said.

"I can't imagine not having the singing tree. We get such a good response from it even when the weather is cold. We've sung in precipitation before ... You would think in such a small place that after that many times your crowd would just drop off, but we still continue to have good crowds. People say it's a big part of their Christmas,” Black said.

Randy Clark is another church member who has enjoyed singing in the Tree almost every year since its inception. The only one he missed was in 2005. A former band director, Clark has even directed the Tree on several different occasions when the church was without a music director.

“The Tree at Christmas is helpful in getting us into the Christmas spirit. It is one thing we do at the church that involves people of all ages,” Clark said.

This Christmas tradition has been tweaked slightly over the years and for awhile now has incorporated a live manger scene, in which church members dress as the characters who gathered after Christ's birth in a stable. The procession of kings is a favorite part, Smithee said.

Church members Tommy Gregory and Marion Howard coordinate the volunteers for the live nativity scene. “I'm the producer, and I'm going to Hollywood next year,” Gregory jokes.

The scene consists of a cast of characters who come in and out of the picture to tell the story of the birth of Jesus, Gregory explained. “We have [the Singing Christmas Tree] in conjunction with the nativity scene. It's a little bit like a pageant," Smithee. “This year some of the nativity people are going to do a little speaking. That will be something they have not done before, little monologues of their experience with the Christ child,” Smithee said.

The nativity scene is special to Gregory, 60, because he remembers seeing it every year while he was growing up. “The church has been doing the nativity scene since I was a little boy,” he said. “We weren't even members of First Pres, but my family would ride by.

“The tree was kind of the focal point for a year or two. We didn't do the nativity scene. Then we did it in conjunction with the tree ... The music director Ray Smithee does a good job of intertwining the two ... We'd have about two different shifts of characters because you have to stand still for so long,” he said.

Gregory is also proud of the nativity scene because participants are often of different races and reflect some of the diversity of Greenwood. “That's the way it ought to be,” he said.

The behind-the-scenes crew makes sure the lights work and take care of the scaffolding, and women in the church make sandwiches for participants. “The whole church family works together on it,” Gregory said. “I think it's one of First Presbyterian Church's greatest traditions."

Gregory's son, Thomas Gregory, is looking forward to visiting his hometown for the holidays while taking a break from graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“One of my favorite Christmas memories is of my grandfather taking me to see the Singing Christmas Tree as a child,” Thomas Gregory said. "The singing Christmas tree has always been a family tradition, with most of my family either singing on the tree, participating in the nativity scene or watching from the bleachers.”

Like his father, he, too, has a sense of humor. “Since my step-sister, Elizabeth, was the Virgin Mary in the live nativity scene last year, I guess I am going to have to dress up as the baby Jesus this year if I want to outdo her," he said.