Silent Night from Holiday Treats by Elise Brianne & The Minstrels

As a child, I remember my eyes filling with tears every year at our Christmas Eve service when this song was sung. The lights would go down, candles were lit, and the whole room would lift their voices... Soaking in the sounds of their singing, I would watch silently as snowflakes fell outside the church windows onto the street below.

I had no sense of the Christian view of right and wrong at that time or of what it meant to be religious. I just knew the warmth I felt in that moment, and regardless of life's ups and downs, losses and sorrow, as well as how deeply disillusioned I've become with organized religion, this song still sets a small fire aglow in my heart when Christmas season rolls around...

Western New York born and raised songbird sings solo songs in coffeehouses and dimly lit bars from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest.

Trades in cozy chambers for the open road: slumbering under star-filled skies and communing with the moon. Festivals and campfires...

Follows the sunshine to the southwest and settles in a hot springs town in the high desert: soaking, singing, strumming...