It’s that time of year again when the stores are filled with holiday music, Christmas decorations and lights adorn lawns throughout the Lehigh Valley and everyone is running around shopping and getting ready for the gift-giving season.

Because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shutdown, I was able to get my Christmas decorations up sooner, and I feel like this year, I’m going to have a little more time to really enjoy the holidays.

All of our lives are different this year, and we regret that the Allentown Symphony Orchestra has not been able to perform live concerts for all of you. But there is still much to be thankful for.

Christmas and the holidays are about traditions. For some, their tradition centers around watching “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the classic movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

For others, their tradition might be attending the “Nutcracker” ballet or the play “A Christmas Carol.”

Others might celebrate this time of year by going to Christkindlmarkt, Bethlehem, or attending a church performance of the “Messiah.”

In a normal year, all of this would be available to us. But as we all know, this is not a normal year.

Even so, at the Allentown Symphony, we wanted to start a brand-new tradition of presenting a “Holiday Pops Concert” every year. We were planning on starting this tradition next year, but decided to move it up because we felt “We need a little Christmas” right now!

Since we can’t present in-person concerts because of Pennsylvania Department of Health coronavirus protocol limiting the number of persons at indoor events, our new holiday concert will be filmed in Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown, and streamed online, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12, to all of you in your homes. I can’t think of anything nicer than enjoying a concert featuring members of the Allentown Symphony on your own TV, while sitting sipping hot chocolate and warming yourself in front of a fire. The concert is available for just $15, and it is free for ASO concert series subscribers.

The “Holiday Pops Concert” features our wonderful ASO Brass Section, led by Principal Trumpet Omri Barak.

Omri joined the Allentown Symphony a few years ago, when he was a 19-year-old student at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia. He beat out all the other auditioning trumpet players. He is an amazing player and we are so lucky to have him in the orchestra.

Joining Omri is ASO Trumpeter Jerry Serfass, Principal Horn Jonathan Clark, Principal Trombone Gilles Bernard, and our beloved Tuba player Ron Demkee, who is also ASO Associate Conductor and Conductor of our ASO “Pops Series.”

To add more fun to the evening, the ASO Brass will be joined by ASO Principal Percussionist Randy Edelman, who will play an assortment of instruments, including chimes, tambourine, glockenspiel and sleigh bells.

Included in the program are some of my favorite pieces, “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” and the “Saints Hallelujah,” in arrangements done by Luther Henderson, who wrote many of the arrangements for the Canadian Brass.

The ASO Brass will play selections from the “Nutcracker” since normally, for the last 25 years, we have performed Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” for the Repertory Dance Theatre ballet on the Miller Symphony Hall stage at this time of year.

Other audience favorites with a focus on bells will be “Jingle Bells,” “Ding Dong! Merrily on High,” “The Carol of the Bells” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

To tell us more about the pieces on the program, we’ve invited actor, director and playwright, Wayne Turney, a member of the faculty at DeSales University and a frequent participant in the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, to join us as narrator for the concert.

Turney has narrated programs for the Cleveland Orchestra, Chautauqua Symphony and National Symphony, among others. We are all in for a treat as he takes us through a wonderful evening of beautiful music that the entire family will enjoy.

Even though we can’t be together in person, I hope we can all be together virtually, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12, as we watch the beginning of a new tradition, the ASO “Holiday Pops Concert.”

We can even chat back and forth during the concert.

Enjoy the music and happy holidays!

Tickets for Allentown Symphony “Holiday Pops Concert”: https://www.millersymphonyhall.org/

Diane Wittry is Music Director and Conductor of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra; Music Director and Conductor of The Garden State Philharmonic, New Jersey, and author of “Beyond the Baton” and “Baton Basics.” She teaches conducting workshops throughout the United States and Europe.