Maryhill’s Commercial Tavern is kicking off the holiday season in style this weekend with Christmas tunes and trees.
On Sunday afternoon, everyone is invited to join the Weber Family, Paul, Mike and Sue, as well as West Montrose’s Peter Tillich, for country and Christmas music. Everyone will also get to go home with a one-year-old potted Montrose Charm table top Christmas tree, which is a white spruce.
In that vein, Paul Weber and Tillich will sing a special duet of ‘O Christmas Tree’ (O Tannenbaum).
Tillich, owner of West Montrose Farms, says the previous shows where they gave out free Baby Blue spruce trees were well received.
“It went very well, both of them. We had one in the spring and one in the fall. That was a full house and I would anticipate a full house this time, partly because it’s a Sunday afternoon.”
He says they’ll be singing some fun Christmas songs and the hope is that people who come will sing along. He notes Weber will have the tavern all decked out for the holidays come Sunday. Tillich and Weber have been working on the song ‘You Raise Me Up,’ which he expects they will also perform.
“This time for sure we’re going to do ‘You Raise Me Up’ and then probably if we do have a second one then I think Paul and I will try ‘Baby Blue’ again to give the people a little variety,” Tillich said.
Tillich frequents the tavern’s Thursday night open jams and he notes a woman who regularly stops by teaches German. Sometimes they’ll sing ‘You Can’t Be True Dear,’ which has a lot of German words, and when they sing ‘O Christmas Tree,’ they’ll include a verse in German too, as well as singing German in one more song.
“I would certainly want to do ‘O Silent Night’ because we can do one verse in German, the original German,” Tillich said.
Given the number of families with German heritage in this neck of the woods, it should go over well.
As for the trees, he notes they’ve only been offering the white spruce for the last three years.
“I found a white spruce years ago back in the ‘80s that grew very slender upright. I dug some this fall and they’re about seven feet tall and probably about a 20-inch diameter,” Tillich said.
He says a normal white spruce at that height would be three to four feet across. The ones he grows make great Christmas trees due to their compact size. They’re also “fuzzy,” and almost “teddy bear-like.”
The doors open on Dec. 4 at 2:30 p.m., with the music starting just after 3 p.m. at the Commercial Tavern in Maryhill. The cover charge is $10, which includes the tabletop Christmas tree.
