Jon Schmidt Christmas Party

December 10, 2008

It’s been a crazy last month or so and I haven’t blogged at all. One of the crazy things going on was getting ready for our Christmas party this year. We invited Jon Schmidt to come play for us. He’s one of my favorites. We’ve seen his big show at Thanksgiving Point before, but also had a chance to see him in a small concert where there were maybe a hundred of us and everyone had a great view. His big show was fabulous, but it couldn’t compare to the smaller group show where he interacts with you, takes requests, and answers questions.

I heard last year that Jon does these in-home concerts for a nominal fee at Christmas time. So this year I kept it in the back of my mind that I wanted to get him in our home for an evening. It all came together and he came on Saturday. Julie and I had spent a couple days making food and had a bunch of hors d’oeuvres and goodies. We moved the piano into the family room next to the Christmas tree and moved the couches out of the family room into the guest room. We lined the floor with chairs and I think everyone had a pretty good view.

We had about 45 family members and friends in our home. Jon arrived about a half hour or so after we started. He had some food and then we all sat down to enjoy the show. We don’t have a grand piano so one of the funniest parts of the night was after a few songs when Jon decided he wanted to take the front sound board off the piano to get every last bit of sound he could from it. I told him he could saw the piano in half if it would make it sound better. It was an awesome show. He played a bunch of Christmas songs and a lot of his other stuff too. He played for a good hour and a half and answered questions and took requests. One of the highlights was a jazz version of Rudolph upside down with his head under the keyboard. He finished with one of his classics, Tribute, and then a beautiful version of Silent Night where we all joined in to sing.

Everything turned out about as perfect as it could be. The “scenery” was perfect as we had all the lights off except the Christmas lights and the fire (at least until it got too hot) and of course there was the great view out our windows to add to the scenery. After the show Jon got a standing ovation and then brought in CDs and piano books to sell. He ended up staying until about 11:00pm and I think everyone had a great time. We’re definitely planning it again for next year. We may have to invite a different crowd though because we had so many people who wanted to come to this. Here’s a couple photos. I’ll post some video a bit later.

Jon Schmidt In-home Concert from Derek Williams on Vimeo.