“HAPPY! MERRY! JOYOUS!” — THE HOLIDAY CAROLING SURVIVAL GUIDE YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED

Happy! Merry! Joyous!: Inside the Mind of a Caroler

What kind of person starts prepping for Christmas caroling in July? A person like Jim Blanchette—Fringe favorite, career character actor, and a man who has spent three decades singing “Good King Wenceslas” at people who didn’t realize they were requesting a mini-series from Netflix. Jim tells us, “I’ve been collecting the tea for years, and it’s finally time to spill it.”

In Happy! Merry! Joyous! Jim invites audiences into the chaotic, tuneful, occasionally soul crushing world of professional caroling. Learn how to rehearse like a pro, master the caroler’s songbook, and survive the battlefield that is a restaurant full of diners, some of whom wish you would just go away. Feel the joy of singing the perfect carol to make a child’s season merry and bright, and the dread of ruining someone else’s holiday by singing the exact same song.

Jim writes, “My hope in writing Happy! Merry! Joyous! is that people will appreciate and enjoy all the preparation that goes into making caroling happen, even if they don’t like Christmas music themselves. Through epic wins, seasonal illnesses, and personal hardships, carolers make every effort to make your holiday season a memorable one.”

Directed by the brilliant Corey Lynn Howe ([title of show], Best of Albuquerque Fringe 2025) and produced by Lisa K Wyatt (Transference, Why We Become Witches), this show is equal parts comedy, confession, and Christmas chaos.

By curtain call, you’ll either want to join a caroling troupe immediately—or never hear another holiday tune for the rest of your life. Either way, it’s festive. It’s frantic. It’s Happy! Merry! Joyous!