The true heart of Christmas does not live under a decorated tree, inside a wrapped box, or within the bustling rush of the season. It beats quietly in the spaces between us, in a song you've known your whole life, in the people you want close and the ones you find yourself missing. It's in the choice to slow down and give those we love what the season usually steals: our time, our attention, our presence.
The Heart of Christmas carries forward a tradition more than two decades in the making. Guest artistic director Evynne Hollens, a Broadway performer, a proud Eugene native and a past participant, fills in for Shirley this year and brings her own voice to that legacy, gathering the songs that lift our spirits, move us, and speak to what we all feel this time of year.
You'll hear everything from "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" to Josh Groban's "Believe," Natalie Cole's "Grown-Up Christmas List," and James Taylor's quiet "Some Children See Him." From sacred carols, to classics from the Great American Songbook, alongside a few originals by Peter Hollens, modern Christmas songs about human connection, letting go of what we can't keep, and finding light in dark times. Young voices will join the stage too, including members of the Hollens family.
However you come to it, Christmas has always asked us to turn toward one another. And like we do every year, we'll still sing together, the songs that remind us we're not so far apart.
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