[MUSIC] The following is a presentation of the students and faculty of the College of Liberal Arts at Middle Tennessee State University with the Center for Educational Media.

[MUSIC] Happy holidays, everyone.

I'm Andrew Oppmann, and welcome to the special edition of Out of the Blue, Joys of the Season.

This is an annual celebration featuring the talented students and faculty in the College of Liberal Arts at Middle Tennessee State University.

Joining me once again, my co-host, Dr. Leah Tolbert Lyons, Dean of the College.

>> Thank you, Andrew, for inviting us back again this year.

We're so excited to be able to feature the programs in the College of Liberal Arts.

The College of Liberal Arts hosts over 200 arts events every year, and I'm excited to showcase the wonderful talents in our Fine and Performing Arts programs.

Our first performance features the cast of She Loves Me, directed by Associate Professor of Theatre, Kristi Shamburger in MTSU's Tucker Theatre.

She Loves Me is a musical by Bock and Harnick, who are most well known for their 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof.

This is a piece from the most recent mainstage production, produced by our Department of Theatre and Dance.

The cast of She Loves Me will be performing the song Twelve Days to Christmas, an energetic number you may relate to as the days for holiday shopping quickly pass by.

[MUSIC] >> On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me- >> On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me- >> On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me.

>> Good morning, Mr. Novak.

>> Good morning, Miss Balash, how are you today?

>> Ready for thousands of customers, >> Only 12 days to go.

>> Ooh, fa la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

Fa la, la, la, la, la, la, fa-ah.

>>Twelve days to Christmas, twelve days to Christmas, plenty of time to do your Christmas shopping.

These are the people who shop in time, shop in time, plenty of time.

These are the people with time to spare who shop at their convenience.

Twelve days to Christmas, twelve days to Christmas, look at the way they do their Christmas shopping.

They can go shopping and still remain calm and sedate.

These are the people we envy and the people that we hate!

Thank you, thank you, >>We'll call again, >>Please call again, >>We'll call again, >>Do call again, Thank you.

>> Quite a day, eh, Mr. Novak?

>> It certainly was, Ms. Balash.

>> Thank you for the book, it was excellent.

>> I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Will you be taking the bus home today, Ms. Balash?

>> Yes, I will.

>> May I walk you to the bus stop?

>> I'd like that, Mr. Novak.

[MUSIC] >> Twelve drummers drumming.

Eleven pipers piping.

Ten lords a leaping.

Nine.

>>Nine days to Christmas, nine days to Christmas, still have time to do your Christmas shopping.

These are the people who shop in time, shop in time, still enough time, sensible people who organize the time at their disposal.

Nine days to Christmas, nine days to Christmas, still have time to do your Christmas shopping.

These are the people who plan their days wisely and well.

These are the people who shop in time, and they can go to hell!

[MUSIC] Thank you, thank you, >>We'll call again, >>Please call again, >>We'll call again, >>Do call again, Thank you.

[MUSIC] >> Are you in a very great hurry today, Ms. Balash?

>> No, not at all.

>> I thought maybe a cup of coffee on the way to the bus?

>> I'd love that, Mr. Novak.

>> So would I.

[MUSIC] >> Eight maids a milking.

Seven swans a swimming.

Six geese a laying.

Five golden rings.

>>Four days to Christmas, four days to Christmas, just enough time to do your Christmas shopping.

These are the people who shop in time, just in time, barely in time.

These are the people who calculate with clinical precision.

Four days to Christmas, four days to Christmas, these are the folks who never waste a second.

Full of a chilly efficiency loaded with gall, never too early and never late, and they're the worst of all!

[MUSIC] Thank you, thank you, >>We'll call again, >>Please call again, >>We'll call again, >>Do call again, Thank you.

>> What a day!

>> [LAUGH] Just wait until the 24th.

>> The 24th?

>> One day to Christmas, one day to Christmas, not enough time to do your Christmas shopping.

We're not the shopple who peeped in time.

We're not the sheeple who popped in time.

We're not the people who shopped in time, shopped in time, not enough time.

We are the people who always wait until it's much too late!

One day to Christmas, one day to Christmas, how will we ever do our Christmas shopping?

Why did we ever delay so long, who can recall?

Some of the family may not get a Christmas gift at all!

>> I wasn't done.

>> God, please this time maybe.

>> Please, please- >> God, aah!

[MUSIC] Thank you, thank you, >>We'll call again, >>Please call again, >>We'll call again, >>Do call again, Thank you.

[MUSIC] Merry Christmas!

>> Our next performance takes us over to Hinton Hall in our School of Music.

The MTSU Cello Ensemble is led by Dr. Bryan Hayslett, an Assistant Professor of Cello.

The Ensemble will be playing Dr. Hayslett's original arrangement of three carols, entitled “Halls Upon The Merry Housetop”.

The music begins with “Up On The Housetop”, after which a wintry transition takes us to the traditional English carols “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Deck the Halls”.

This arrangement sets holiday classics within the lush, energetic sounds of a Cello Ensemble.

[MTSU Cello Ensemble plays somber intro] [MTSU Cello Ensemble plays "Up On The Housetop”] [MTSU Cello Ensemble plays "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”] [MTSU Cello Ensemble plays "Deck The Halls”] Welcome back to this special edition of “Out of the Blue: Joys of the Season”, I'm Andrew Oppmann.

And I'm joined by Professor Debrah Sickler-Voigt from our Department of Art and Design, and she's gonna teach us an exciting holiday craft for all ages.

A stamped flour clay ornament with a haiku that you can easily do from your own kitchen.

So Debbie, what are we gonna do?

Walk me through this.

>> Sure, I'm so happy to be here with you and teach you something that we can actually do with ingredients we have at home.

So first we're gonna start with a flour salt mixture, which is basically two cups of non-rising flour, a cup of water, a cup of salt, and a tablespoon and a half of cooking oil.

>> Okay.

>> And you get them in a nice consistency.

Now you wanna be careful getting started because the flour can be sticky, so I like to use a little brush, and I'm just gonna powder dust.

Same thing would go with any utensil that I'm using, I pre-floured those already.

So if you need more, help yourself.

>> [LAUGH] Well I don't know, you tell me.

>> We'll find out, so you're gonna just take a little roll.

You don't want it to go too too thin, I'd say a couple of rolls will do it.

>> So a couple rolls?

>> Yeah, a little bit lighter pressure.

There you go, that's beautiful.

Okay, so you want it about a quarter inch thickness.

Now we talked about doing a peacock stamp.

This is a handmade peacock stamp that I found at a craft store.

>> This has significance to you, right?

>> Yes, we actually live on Peacock Avenue, and our Christmas tree is decorated in all peacocks.

And think about the themes that you have at your own home, how you decorate and design, so this could be anything you like.

Okay, so you're gonna stamp it down.

Now, don't press too hard because it'll stick, and take your hand and you wanna make sure you pat- get all the edges and that's a good, yeah, try to pull it up carefully.

>> All right, here we go.

>> Great, yay!

Yeah, you did it!

>> Hey, all right!

[LAUGHS] >> Now if you notice we have that kinda teardrop form.

So this is a clay tool, but you're also welcome to use a knife that you have- regular kitchen knife, and so you're just gonna- >> Just curve it around like this, right?

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> All right.

>> Gorgeous, look how easy!

>> All right, all right, I just didn't wanna mess it up.

>> No, not at all, and if we do mess up, that's no problem because we could just roll the clay back in a ball, and then roll it back out again.

So we're gonna peel this off and you see it's there.

You did a fabulous job on your ornament.

So the next step is we wanna make sure that it can hang properly.

>> Oh yeah, that's important, right?

>> Yeah, yeah!

>> [LAUGH] >> So here's a chopstick and I like to use the thicker edge, so if you just dab it through, don't have it right on the edge ‘cause that's not enough space.

Give a little real estate- >> All right, jab it through it.

Like there?

>> Perfect, and then roll it around a little.

>> Get a little hole in there.

>> Yeah, make sure- >> Okay.

>> Yay, got it!

>> All right.

>> Great job!

>> So that'll just go right into the oven.

>> Ready to go!

>> All right, so now I've done this, now I've put it in the oven for how long?

>> Basically, you wanna go at 300 to 350 degrees.

>> Okay.

>> And anywhere from 30 minutes to 60 minutes, just test it ‘cause it needs to dry thoroughly.

>> What's the next thing?

>> Now we get to get into some color.

Now, do know painting is a layering process.

So for example, if I show these gingerbread men, you're gonna notice this is a base coat.

You have to be careful for little spots.

So you wanna do all the edges ‘cause you wanna seal this.

>> So Debbie, is this like a primer?

The first layer that you put in?

>> This is just regular acrylic paint, which is plastic-base.

>> Okay.

>> You can also get some craft paint, which is also a plastic/acrylic base.

>> Does it take a while for the paint to saturate?

Because it's hard, it should just paint up bright.

>> No, it's great, it dries within a few minutes, but you do want it to dry thoroughly as you go into your next layers.

For these peacocks, I'd say are probably at about four to five layers of paint.

>> I love how shiny that is!

>> And I do recommend something with a sheen, a gloss, metallic.

But one thing you can do, before it goes in the oven, put some of the beads and just know they might get distorted a little bit.

But you can reuse them to get the form in there that you like, but that is a last addition.

You wanna add your ribbon, you wanna add any last little glitz, last just because you might accidentally get paint on it, which I would do!

>> These were actual gift tags from your Christmas supply closet, right?

You just pulled these out.

>> Using things that we have at home.

Now, you do want it to match.

And so being in Art Education, teaching education is so important to us, thinking about what we're doing.

And so why are we creating an ornament?

Why is it important or sentimental?

And so we would have family members, we would write either individually or together a haiku, which has a 5-7-5 syllable lineage, and they're really fun to do.

It could be on this year what we're doing.

Maybe we're missing somebody we care about, it could be a tribute to someone.

For ours, we have: “love, joy, cheer abound, family togetherness, peacocks in our tree”.

>> There you go and the peacock, how cool is that?

Debbie, all this is fantastic, but I wanna make sure folks follow the recipe and know the instructions, where can they find it online?

>> Sure, they can find it on our website, mtsu.edu/mtsuarts.

>> Thank you so much for showing us these wonderful holiday keepsakes, thank you.

>> Thank you so much!

>> Up next, we are headed to Tucker Theatre for a performance from our Dance students.

Kim Holt, a member of the Dance faculty, arranged this classical ballet variation the students are performing to Tchaikovsky's “Waltz of the Flowers”, a holiday favorite from the Nutcracker ballet.

The piece has been so popular over the years, that it was even used in Walt Disney's 1940 animated classic “Fantasia”.

[Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers" plays] >> To close out this special edition of “Out of the Blue”, we're heading back to Hinton Hall to hear the MTSU Symphony Orchestra perform an annual tradition of this show: Leroy Anderson's holiday classic, “Sleigh Ride”.

[MTSU Symphony Orchestra play “Sleigh Ride”] [MUSIC ENDS] >> Professor, thank you so very much!

What a great performance!

We appreciate you.

We appreciate the Symphony.

What a great way to close this show.

Thank you.

And this does wrap up this edition of “Joys of the Season”.

My thanks to my co-host, Dr. Leah Lyons, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and the wonderful students and faculty in her College.

Also, my thanks to the College of Media and Entertainment for use of their XR studio stage, and my colleagues at True Blue TV Event Productions, and the Center for Educational Media.

I'm Andrew Oppmann, and on behalf of the crew of “Joys of the Season” and “Out of the Blue” - Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and have a great New Year.

[MUSIC]