First up was Furness Vale on Friday 25th November. The new venue for their Tree at St John's Church was a great success, starting in the church hall with refreshments and stalls before the tree was lit up at 7pm, accompanied by the Band and junior hand bell ringers from FV primary school. Then more carols and mince pies back inside.
Rehearsal as usual on Wednesday, then on to Buxworth on Friday to light their tree.
A rather unusual "bandstand" at Buxworth: if you look carefully, you can just make out the Band in the Wendy House on the right hand side.
Inside this time, so Christmas jumpers instead of winter Band Jackets.
And a special guest appearance of Father Christmas, who much to everyone's surprise, gave a virtuoso performance of The Christmas Song on the trombone. What a shame Graham didn't get to hear it - he went missing at the start of the second half of the concert, and didn't reappear until after Father Christmas had left. What bad timing!