It may be hard to believe, but Celtic Christmas returns Saturday, Dec. 16 for its ninth year here!
Our favorite dynamic duo, Stephen Mathys and Heather Endicott, have given far more to the atmosphere here, and to the Coast Fork family, than their job descriptions could ever entail. And each December, they bring us one of their most quaint, delightful, and festive contributions.
But make no mistake, they don’t just do it for us – there’s plenty for Mathys and Endicott about Celtic Christmas and its evolution over the years.
“The first year, we had four musicians, and we basically did a Celtic show that had a few Christmas songs in it,” Mathys said. “Then, it dwindled down to Heather and I, and we started putting in a lot of really old Christmas pieces.
So we’ll do some medieval Christmas songs, some of which are in Latin. And some of which are country folk tunes that are just really old. That definitely changed the whole feel of it. It wasn’t just Irish tunes. There were lots of different things that were vaguely related to Christmas or the Winter Solstice.”
Mathys said that discovering “new” old holiday tunes is the highlight of Celtic Christmas for he and his partner in music (well, basically everything).
“Hearing a traditional piece that no one has ever done, or finding something in a book – that’s the super nerdy part of it, but we like it,” he said. “And then we have to figure out how to play it.”
Mathys says that regardless of the tunes that get played, Celtic Christmas is always well received.
“We try to make it as special as possible,” he said.
