I cannot believe Christmas is right around the corner!

I have to admit I’m pretty excited about that.

This is the first Christmas with our new baby and I’ve been having way too much fun singing carols with her and jingling bells together.

I’ve also been singing carols during my sessions with my clients who celebrate Christmas.

I typically make a very conscious effort to use original songs in my music therapy sessions with kids, but sometimes I do use pre-existing songs when there is a very specific reason.

This year, I thought of a creative way to use the song “Up On the Housetop” to teach the kazoo.

I had been trying to teach my group of 3- and 4-year-olds how to play the kazoo to work on lip closure. It’s actually pretty tricky! They want to blow on it like a whistle, but actually the way to make a sound on a kazoo is to make a “huh” sound that comes from deeper in the throat.

Immediately my mind went to “ho, ho, ho!”

I could prompt them to say “ho, ho, ho” into the kazoo and that would be the perfect way to teach this concept!

So, we sang “Up On the Housetop” and during the part that says “Ho, ho, ho, who wouldn’t go?” I prompted them to “ho, ho, ho” into the kazoo. I repeated it a few times so they had multiple opportunities to make the “ho” sound and play the kazoo, thus facilitating lip closure.

It worked beautifully!

We “ho, ho, ho’d” over and over again.

I hope this little idea will spark some more ideas for you on how to use Christmas songs to target specific goals in your music therapy sessions!