The men of the UNI Varsity Men’s Glee Club were back to their holiday shenanigans for their 37th annual Christmas variety show. With one show on Friday and two shows on Saturday, the Glee Club, along with the UNI Men’s Camerata, Orchesis Dance Company, Swingfonians, S.H.O.P. and the 2014 Arthur Murder Dancers seasoned the Great Hall with the sounds of Christmas. 

 “This is actually my first Christmas show as a Glee Club member, but I’ve been in the past for variety acts so it was the experience of being committed to the show and being a part of the whole thing. I think that this year the biggest difference was having Panther Palms,” said Colby Campbell, senior vocal music major and Glee Club member.

Campbell, whose favorite piece to perform was ‘Silent Night’ thought it was really powerful when the Glee Club brought Panther Palms into the mix to sign the entire song.

The 2014 Varsity Men’s Glee Club consists of 120 men representing over 37 majors.

The Glee Club’s director, John Wiles, invited Panther Palms, a sign language choir, to perform. Katie O’Brien, an American Sign Language instructor at UNI, created Panther Palms last year.

 “We feel incredibly honored. We know how big of a tradition the Glee Club is and the Varsity Men’s Glee Club Christmas Variety Show is a big deal on campus and in Iowa,” O’Brien said. 

The addition of the Panther Palms opened up the Christmas variety show to the deaf community. 

“It’s their first time at this performance because they’ve never had really access to this performance before,” O’Brien said, who had been speaking with a few people in the deaf community after the concert.

Abigail Stecker, sophomore communications disorders major, said the addition of Panther Palms was a pleasant surprise. She liked that the Glee Club decided to be more inclusive in their performance. 

The addition of the Panther Palms to the show was not the only pleasant surprise of the evening. During the intermission of Saturday’s final show, Thomas Kesten, senior social sciences teaching major, proposed to Lisa Schneider, senior elementary education major.

The night of music include songs such as “Ave Maria,” “We Need a Little Christmas,” “Lo, How A Rose E’re Blooming” and “The First Noel,” as well as “Carol of the Bells,” “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” and “The Gift Within.”

Aside from the music, members of the Glee Club performed the traditional Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, Chirstmas Can-Can and a skit entitled “Charlie and the Toy Factory,” which was written by members Jacob Ferguson, Tim Vonderhaar and Clark Jackley. 

“The play always surprises me just because it’s so creative and so different every year,” said Emily Gardner, junior sociology major.  “It’s always amazing and I really love to see them every year and it’s my favorite thing.”

Campbell said he hoped people left moved and refreshed in the holiday spirit. 

“A lot of bad stuff happens in the world, as we all know, and my goal of this concert was to take people away from that for a little while and kind of make the world a better place,” Campbell said.