The Austin Ukulele Society held its 11th annual Holiday Strum-a-long and we had a wonderful time with a group of 150 ukulele players joining in live from around the globe. We appreciate all the gratitude and fantastic feedback sent as follow up with the selfies. There’s no bigger silver lining of the pandemic for Bob and Jen than to have shared nearly two years of virtual monthly AUS meetings with all of you. Thank you for finding us and making every effort to participate live or review the recorded meeting afterward!

We kicked off with some local ukulele news, including an exclusive discount for AUS members and viewers to get 40% of Austin-based Journey Instruments ukes and uke gig bags. The new coupon code is HappyHolidaysAUS and it’s valid through 1/1/22.

We warmed up with Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” before diving into the holiday play-along tunes. Bob gave mini lessons for each song, and we ran through the delightful and varied repertoire of holiday standards and contemporary hits that the AUS has built up over our 11 years. It was so much fun singing and strumming those festive tunes! We wrapped up our meeting with our always-swan song, Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.”

Afterward, Bob graciously thanked Jen Richardson for all the behind-the-scenes work she does to manage the Austin Ukulele Society. Then Bob even got an on-screen kiss (!) from his talented wife, Lyda Guz, who does an amazing job designing our shirts and running the presentations.

You can watch a replay of the December 9 live stream. Watch the entire show or jump to the part you most want to see!
● Welcome and announcements
● “Three Little Birds” warm-up song
● Blue Christmas
● Holly Jolly Christmas / Marshmallow World
● Let It Snow / Winter Wonderland
● Mele Kalikimaka / Jingle Bells
● Rockin’ Christmas Medley
● Santa Claus is Coming to Town
● Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
● All I Want For Christmas Is You
● Last Christmas
● I’ll Be Home For Christmas / Home for the Holidays
● “On the Road Again” closing song

You can play along by downloading the
🎄 🎁 Austin Ukulele Society’s Holiday Songbook 🎁 🎄

This songbook includes charts for all the joyous Christmas and wintry-themed songs in a condensed format designed to minimize page turns when printed two-sided. You can also play along with our videos of these songs on our YouTube channel. On our website’s “Music Library” page, our holiday music repertoire – All of Our Holiday Season Favorites – is grouped together near the top, for ease of video play-along. You can find a video to play along with for nearly all of the repertoire.

Before we said good night, we debuted the amazing collaborative video for our “Home for the Holidays” medley, brilliantly produced by Marty Porter and excellently audio engineered by Paul Butler. Huge thanks and congratulations to our very talented participants: Chris Armstrong, Rodger Baker, Paulette Barwinkel, Shelly Benjamin, Patrice Bovero, Arnie Butay, Paul Butler, Linda Christensen, Victor Erickson, Ina and Tahlia Ferrara, Pauline and Vince Forbes, Shel Fung, Bob Guz, David Haye, Annie Kim Hedrick, Jill Hetherton, Sandy Johnson, Gail Johnson, Sue Kaneko, Nancy Kaumeyer, Mary Kealy, Arlene Krassner, Brian Macguire, Irene Messina, Ann Peters, Gary Phelps, Jean Pollack, Leslie Poppen, Steve Powell, Kimmer Prezio, Sabine Pütz, Jerry Raihl, Dan Roeder, Maria Roeder, Laurel Rulison, Al Saloha, Martha Schreffler, Fran Stelly, Vince and Julie Villescaz, Tanya Visser, Cindy Walker and Steve Workman. Incredible work everyone! Check it out:

Remember that while second-Thursdays will return to in-person meetings on January 13, we’ll meet again virtually on January 27, 2022. We can’t wait to ‘see’ you again!

Thank you for joining us, sending in your selfies, and staying connected! We wish you a joyous holiday season and a great start to the new year!!

For more downloadable music, visit our Ukulele Music Library. For more Austin Ukulele Society videos, check out our YouTube Channel.

Contact Us if you have any questions or would like to be added to our mailing list!

Ukulele Society T-shirts!
As you may know, we create a new t-shirt every fall. Celebrating our global AUS community, we are thrilled to unveil our latest edition t-shirt, “Ukulele Around the World,” designed by the talented Lyda Guz!

The shirts are silk screened here in Austin at a fantastic locally-owned print shop and are available for purchase via mail order. The new “Ukulele Around the World” design, “10th Anniversary,” Mermaid, Cowboy,” and “Austin Lasso” shirts are $20 – all other styles are $15. Please drop us a line if you’d like to purchase a shirt (or two or three). 🙂 At this time, we can only ship orders within the U.S.

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