Holly jolly sisters

The Singing Nuns’ 10th annual holiday concert is titled “Christmas at Our House” – and they have quite a house.

Their “house” is Mount St. Michael, the convent just northeast of Spokane. The concert won’t actually be on the mountain – all four shows will be at The Met – but it is designed to capture both the convent’s solemnity and its merriment.

So these 23 singing sisters will open with “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” in an a cappella style true to the song’s 13th-century origins as a chant.

Yet they’ll also do “Sleigh Ride” and “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” They’ll even perform a little skit and song around the theme of a ski trip.

“We’ll break into the fun quite a lot,” said Sister Mary Bernadette, the Singing Nuns’ director and coordinator. “Our musical director, Edward Myers, can make anything more fun.”

The first half of the program will have a general theme of Advent, taking its cue from some of the feast days of the season. For instance, the feast day of St. Nicholas falls on Dec. 6, so the show will feature a man dressed as old St. Nick coming on stage and greeting the children.

The feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe arrives on Monday, so the Singing Nuns will commemorate it by singing Mexican and Spanish carols.

The coming of Christmas will be heralded at the end of the first half with the “Gloria” that is traditionally sung at Midnight Mass.

The second half of the program will have a Christmas Day theme, with solemn music followed by music of joy and merriment.

“I’m going to talk about what it’s like on Christmas morning in the convent,” said Sister Mary Bernadette.

Four sisters will gather together to do songs in four-part harmony.

The sisters will be accompanied by Sister Philomena and Myers on the keyboards and harpist Serena Miller.

Since their first public concert at Seattle’s Olympic Hotel in August 1979, the nuns have toured across the country and appeared on national television. Their Christmas concerts at The Met began in 1996 and have become a Spokane holiday tradition.

The concerts are a fund-raiser for Mount St. Michael.

“We hope to make a dent in our heat bills,” said Sister Mary Bernadette.

This year, the show had to be planned over the phone to some extent. Sister Mary Bernadette has moved to Boston where she is stationed at a mission, and longtime musical director Myers now lives in Las Vegas.

Both are coming back “home” for the “Christmas at Our House” concert.