By: Brooks Leebern

On Tuesday, November 19th, I had the privilege of going to see the Collingsworth Family in concert for their Christmas tour. Me and my grandma always try to go to one of their concerts whenever they are near us, and when we saw that they were going to be in Bremen, Georgia, we knew that we had to go see them. As always, the Collingsworth Family did not disappoint!
The concert began with a medley of Christmas songs, and the entire audience started clapping and singing along. The Christmas spirit filled the room, and the mother of the family, Kim, played an awesome version of “Carol of the Bells” on the piano. Her ability to play never ceases to amaze me; she really knows how to make those keys dance! As the night went on, each member of the family got their chance to shine. From Brooklyn and Courtney on the violin to Phil on the trumpet, the whole family knows how to put on one heck of a show!
The highlight of the night, however, was when all of the Collingsworth grandkids came onstage and began to sing along. Kim and Phil have four kids, and most of those four kids have children of their own, and they all travel across the country together on four buses. Before introducing each member of the family and their children, Phil said that He and Kim loved being grandparents. He said, “We started COVID; our third grandchild was born. We finished COVID, our ninth was born”. After Phil introduced every family member, the grandkids sang an adorable version of “Away In A Manger”, in which each grandchild had their own solo.
Near the end of the concert, Kim let the audience call out Christmas songs for her to play on the piano, and during this time, someone called out “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”, so Kim began to play it. About midway through the song, however, the back doors of the sanctuary swung open and a man in an inflatable hippo costume came waltzing down the isle, which elicited a ripple of amused laughter throughout the audience. The hippo reached the base of the stage, did a little dance, and then walked back up the isle and out the doors. Once the audience had stopped laughing, Kim said, “You guys, that’s our bus driver; he’s supposed to be in bed”.
After the show was over, the family stood in the lobby of the church and talked to the audience, so I got to talk to Kim. Amazingly, she remembered me from the other concert’s I've been to, and she hugged me and said that it was nice to see me. As I reflect on the concert, I am starting to appreciate the authenticity of the Collingsworth Family, and it warms my heart to know that this Christmas, thousands of people around the nation will get to experience the music and the beauty of a Collingsworth Family concert.
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