There’s a simple, earnest joy that happens when a room full of people come together to listen, sing, dance, or just enjoy. Seemingly ordinary moments become luminous. In Hattiesburg and across the Pine Belt, this feeling is not seasonal – it’s built into organizations that, season after season, create opportunities for people to gather and be moved.
This year’s holiday season feels especially hungry for that kind of light. If you’re looking for ways to make your holidays truly merry and bright, the arts – community plays and choruses, school concerts, crafters, and more – offer a clear, generous path: focus on small joys, share them widely, and let participation be the present.
And perhaps, this year, that’s the most meaningful gift of all – presence instead of presents. Instead of wondering what to wrap, we might ask ourselves where we can show up. Attending a concert, applauding a student’s first performance, visiting a local gallery, or simply spending unhurried time with family and friends, these are the moments that linger far longer than anything found on a shelf. Presence can mean being fully engaged where your feet are, giving your time, attention, and warmth to those who need it most. It’s a reminder that your presence has the power to comfort, to encourage, and to bring light to someone else’s season.
At their best, the arts do three things for us all year round and multiply those gifts during the holidays. They connect people to one another, give voice to emotions we otherwise can’t name, and create rituals that mark time and memory. These programs turn performance into relationships. That’s the heart of what organizations like FestivalSouth, the Meistersingers, and so many more do – build consistent, welcoming channels where performing and visual arts become a shared language for joy, solace, and celebration.
When the choir opens with an old carol and a stranger’s face lights up in the pew a few rows over, that single instant threads people together. When a festival brings a virtuoso pianist, a rock band, and a children’s workshop to the same week, it multiplies the chances for strangers to find something that makes them smile. During a season that can be stressful or lonely for many, those multiplied chances are the practical, quiet work of making a community “merry and bright.”
For decades, civic choirs have been living hearths for their towns. They are places where generations meet, rehearse, and perform together. The Meistersingers of Mississippi, for example, has created lasting musical memories in Hattiesburg since the 1990s, offering both grand choral works and intimate seasonal concerts that stitch a community together. Their programming and long history reflect how a chorus can be simultaneously ambitious artistically and deeply neighborly. During the holidays especially, choral music’s warmth and harmonic embrace make it a natural vehicle for shared thanksgiving and celebration.
FestivalSouth is a reminder that festivals are creative ecosystems that nourish artists, educators, and audiences. Even outside of June, the festival’s spirit of multidisciplinary programming, accessible opportunities, and outreach offer a model for holiday programming. Think of your holiday plans like a mini festival. Try mixing music, visual art, storytelling, and food, and you have a recipe for memory-making that’s both joyful and culturally rich.
This season, merry and bright doesn’t have to be loud or perfect. It can be a single, sustained commitment to noticing what brings light – and then sharing it. A choir’s harmonies that steady the heart. A festival’s program that sparks curiosity. A visit, a meal, a simple word of encouragement. The arts remind us that joy grows in the moments we attend, not just the ones we buy.
I am repeatedly told, “You are so busy.” While that is true to some extent, I am also grateful that “my very scheduled life,” as I prefer to call it, is spent mostly doing things in pursuit of what I love with people I love. If I can be there – I will. Being tired helps me sleep at night anyway. Being tired from a scheduled life like this, is worth it.
So, this year, I challenge you to give generously of yourself. Be present at the concert, at the table, in your community. If you can support financially, that is both needed and wonderful. If you can’t, show up. Treat yourself and those around you to the gift of you. Let your presence be the gift that lights up someone’s world. Because the truest magic of a merry and bright season usually isn’t in the wrapping paper.
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Mike Lopinto is the PR/marketing and event coordinator for the Southern Miss School of Music. He is known as much for his role as the executive director of the Hattiesburg Concert Association that presents FestivalSouth, the Meistersingers, and the Community and Educational Outreach Program, as he is for being the award-winning director of the Hub City Players. A passionate advocate for the arts, he has hosted galas, gatherings, and concerts that have pulled on all areas of the arts to create memories for generations of lucky patrons. His holidays are best spent enjoying family and close friends, being very grateful for all those who share his dream for our community, and with no schedule and no plans… at least for a day.
