Older Palmerstonians will remember Christmas carols being sung on Christmas morning by Salvation Army choristers with the Salvation Army band members on the back of a large flat-deck truck as they drove around city streets - a different section of the city each year.
They might also remember families gathered around a piano singing carols after a midday dinner, or after the presents had been opened.
Award-winning American composer John Corigliano had visited the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where there is a large display of medieval art. Much of it centres around Bible stories, most notably the Christmas story.
Massive artworks of chubby cherubs and chin-rubbing wise men were often reduced, reprinted and inserted in Bibles.
The museum has cloisters, open hallways running alongside the building which inspired Corigliano to write a carol about Christmas in New York.
The result is Christmas in the Cloisters, a contemporary-sounding composition that uses the same devices that captured movie-goers listening to Corigliano's award-winning soundtracks.
Donaldson on piano will provide a melodic underlay, while the choir sings of the New
York setting for Christmas.
From the modern, the Renaissance Singers will dip back to the 15th century via another modern composer, Cecelia McDowall.
McDowall uses old dance rhythms and hints of Gregorian chants to provide a lilting reminder of the carol singing of 500 years ago.
Berlioz - of Symphonie Fantastique fame - wrote the Shepherds' Farewell to Joseph, Mary and Jesus as they ventured to Egypt.
This carol will move even cynics with its gentle, soft reverence, and it is a favourite of those who have heard it before.
The audience will have the opportunity to join the choir in carols and choruses with a number of old favourites.
Among them will be Ding Dong Merrily on High.
While the audience will want to join in the chorus, this lustily-sung carol has sections where some of the choir sing verses while other choir members deliver the syncopated dings and dongs, Tankersley on the organ providing a stirring accompaniment with shimmering scales.
Silent Night and Good King Wenceslas will be well known to most -= with the moral of the Wenceslas story made clear via the choir, as the king and page, despite being in heavy snow, seek to provide for someone with less. Surely a pivotal part of the Christmas message.
The choir in the main are in classic voice for this concert but they do take a turn when singing The Earthly Choir to sound a little more like Manhattan Transfer with "doo-waa" and "bai-dup" stylings.
Christopher Norton is an ex-pat Kiwi living in the UK. He has developed a music teaching programme that has become one of the most popular in the world.
Norton has an obvious link to jazz, and the choir will be letting their hair down a
bit to make sure the carol swings as it should.
