Caroling Returns to Town Green [Photos+Video]

Last year, the inaugural Caroling on the Green event — the brainchild of resident Laura Goyer — attracted about 150 people.

So for this year's event Thursday night, Whole Foods Marketing Team Leader  Katie Wolffe prepared hot cocoa and cider for about 200 people.

It was gone in the first 25 minutes.

Despite dropping temperatures that made a few children resemble a certain red-nosed reindeer, at least 350 people came to continue what is becoming a holiday tradition in Vienna: an enormous singalong of the season's favorite carols on the Town Green.

The songs were led by Vienna Elementary School music teacher Dave Reynolds and local musician Robbie Schaefer, who sang from microphones set up under large decorative snowflakes while lyrics were illuminated on an inflatable screen nearby. The Town of Vienna crafted small fire pits around the edge of the Green, where kids young and old roasted marshmallows and warmed their fingers and toes. 

The event also featured a few performances by the VES Jammers, an audition-only percussive group Reynolds has built over the past few years. They appeared recently on a show at Sirius/XM Studios, among other notable venues.

Goyer said Reynolds and other volunteers built the group's marimbas by hand to save money; it also uses inventive instruments, like large utility buckets turned upside down.

Carolers threw spare change in donation boxes wrapped like presents at the foot of the stage, which will go toward new equipment for the group. 

To see photo and video highlights from the event, click through the media player above. Have photos of your own? Add them to our gallery!

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