I was recently the Toastmaster of the day at Agape Toastmasters and it was only a few days before most major December holidays. Since I'm such a music freak, I chose the topic "Your Favorite Music for Holiday Cheer". I created a playlist for the meeting on my iPod and brought my speaker doc to the meeting. At various points throughout the meeting I would play a snippet of music that was holiday oriented and coincided with something else going on in the meeting. Our Table Topics master, Rhonda Fields was great about integrating music into her topics of the day which included: 1. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light. From now on our troubles will be out of sight…” What would it be like to have your heart be light this Holiday season? What creates that lightness for you? Are there any troubles that you would put out of sight? 2. When you were a child do you remember your senses reacting to the holidays? Please share with us any smells, sounds, songs, images that you remember and how you felt about them? 3. What can you tell us about Rudolph the Reindeer’s background, his relationships, that glow thing going on with his nose - and anything else you know that might give us the true story about him… 4. If heaven and nature were to sing – as they do in the lyrics of the song “Joy to the World”– what would that look like, feel like, sound like to you… 5. If you were the God-parent to a 5 year old child who had not been around music much, what holiday song might you teach them to sing with you and why? What would that be like for you? 6. The first time you heard the lyrics to “Jingle Bells” – where might you have been? What was your world like at the time? How did you feel about that song, or any holiday song - and what was it like to be you back then? 7. If you were to pick a subject for a new holiday song that might open your heart, what would it be about? Tell us more about that song – the lyrics, the sound, the feeling… 8. If you could create the sounds, smells, images of a holiday afternoon that personally brought you joy, no matter what the rest of the world was doing – what might that be like? Please tell us about it… 9. If you could have a well-known singer, or any other person, (dead or alive) sing a holiday song to you, who would that be? What song would you choose? What locale would you choose and what would that experience be like for you? 10. In the lyrics from “The Christmas Song”, we are told: “Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe help to make the season bright. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow will find it hard to sleep tonight.” What might make the season bright for you? What makes your eyes all aglow? Has there ever been a holiday season that was brighter or more “all aglow” for you - and why? I'd like to use music again next time I lead table topics. I was thinking I could play a snippet of music and speak some lyrics to get the topic started then let the unsuspecting Toastmaster get creative and add her/his own twist to finish it off. Have you tried using music in your table topics or speeches? If so, let us know about it.