But these pale in comparison with the glissanderrific renditions of "O Holy Night" by the songsters and songstresses of the moment. I don't hate the song per se; we sang "O Holy Night" every year at my school, but we sang the French version, which for whatever reason removes a lot of the oversinging torque from the chorus, and also, the song functioned as a solo for one deserving senior who had done her yeoman duty in the Chamber Singers and got to lead the entire Chorale by singing the first verse on her own, and we're all in the gym, lit by pinlights, arrayed in a rough star shape on the bleachers and wearing our official holiday-program white blouses with black satin cravats and floor-length black skirts, and the soloist is down front, twitching from nerves and trying not to barf, and the pianist starts in with the "doo doo doo DOO doo doo, doo doo doo DOO doo doo," and the entire Chorale is praying for the soloist because we've seen it go horribly awry before including during rehearsal yesterday, and she starts off kind of quavery and scratchy and almost inaudible because she's so nervous she can't breathe, and the whole second alto section is quietly muttering "come on, come on, you've got it" to itself because out of everyone on the stage we're the only ones who can't just jump in and cover her if need be because the part's too high for us, and then she's on the second line and she's getting her footing, you could see a shower of sparks coming off that last high note but at least she hit it and it looks like she's going to make it, her throat isn't so tight, she's just singing now, here she is at "d'espérance" so she knows she's almost done, just one more line and we'll take it from there, and when the director cues us for "peuple à genoux," the rest of us just come thundering in all "THANK GOD" and release a sonic boom of relief over the heads of the audience. My point: The song is hard. I know it's hard. It took a village of teenage girls to get just one of us over the wall of "solennelle." Just sing the damn thing and stop showing off. Christmas carols, generally, reflect a certain sense of hushed wonder, so if you've just added ninety-five thousand sixteenth notes to your cheesy rendition of "Silent Night," subtract them right now, because no one cares, Mariah.