After 2 evenings of practice, the KKTMC's Christmas Choir was raring to usher the spirit of the holiday into the homes of their Toastmaster friends. The tradition was incepted during the presidency of Francis Tham, DTM 1997-1998. It took roots during subsequent presidencies, and by 2004, it was in its 8th edition. Not much has changed from the year before except for a few new faces, a new choir maestro Sylvia Maten and a new VPPR Andrew Thien under whose purview the carolling was organised.
The choir was still about 25-member strong, this time led by the Club's disciplined SAA Sylvia Maten, who expected everyone to sing his or her very best. And best they did even in the absence of a guitarist. Earlier, two invited non Toastmaster guitarists quit on the pretext that they could not play to the angelic voices of the choir.
On average the choir visited 4 homes per night for 3 nights in a row. The homes visited included those of Christopher Liew, Karen Kua, Sophia Chia, Sylvia Maten, TC Lim, Ronald Tang, Kevin Lim, Stephen Moligan, Richard Gontusan, Christine Yap, Thomas Ong, Florence Majanil-Liau and finally Louis Tham.
The choir was pleasantly surprised on the third night, at the home of Thomas Ong, when a friend and guitarist Felix Santos, who had been accompanying the choir for many years, appeared with Paul Mathew. Although the choir had been singing reasonably well for the last two nights, the members experienced a burst of energy, captivating melody and everything angelic when Felix played his guitar to their tune, and not the other way round. It was indeed a welcomed transformation, making the choir worthier of the food and drinks served by the host at every house visited.
For the three nights that the choir members spent carolling together, they found renewed vigour to maintain a tradition that has added greater meaning to the festival celebrated - Christmas - the joy of sharing. By the time the choir rendered their last 4 carols at Louis Tham's home, they were already singing at their very best, upon which the warm, festive and special feeling of the occasion had finally come home to roost.
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