Remake of Christmas song earns 10-y-o tablet and fame
Published:Tuesday | December 22, 2020 | 12:12 AMJudana Murphy/Gleaner Writer
“Hello, there, merry Christmas how you been
Gee, it’s so good to meet with you online
It’s been a long, long time
I’m still trying to manage school online
So I’m really praying to get a tablet for Christmas.”
That’s stanza one of a winning jingle sung to the tune of the popular Christmas song Gee Whiz, It’s Christmas that has propelled 10-year-old Abigail Garvey to popularity on the Internet and radio.
For the new school term, Abigail will have unlimited access to a tablet for online classes following her recent win in a Christmas jingle competition.
The competition was hosted by the guidance department of Bogue Hill Primary and Infant School in St James in collaboration with Legeion Music.
Students were required to submit a Christmas jingle sharing why they should win the first prize, an Amazon Fire tablet.
Since schools were shuttered in March to contain the spread of COVID-19, Abigail and hundreds of thousands of Jamaican students had to tap into online learning.
Abigail herself had to share a device with her siblings amid the occasional misfortune of Internet outages.
“There was this time when I had to go on the road and there was no Internet, and I had to use my daddy’s phone, but I think it’s getting a little better,” she said of her experience.
After much searching, her mother, Delia Garvey, chose the song and together they wrote the lyrics.
“I just wrote about the challenges that I think many Jamaicans face with the new way we have to resort to because we cannot have face-to-face school,” the mother of four said, adding that she had to find ways to manoeuvre the device among her three youngest children.
Garvey explained that Abigail did not have much time to rehearse the jingle before submission, as they learnt of the competition a week before the deadline.
Mom is elated at one fewer out-of-pocket expense she can now forgo, as an ideal tablet with prescribed specifications totals $25,000 - or a hundred grand for her four children.
It’s more than the books we buy. I was really happy,” she said.
Abigail cried with joy after exceeding her own expectations.
“I thought some people would send in better videos, and actually, in my heart, I had a lot of faith,” the grade five student said.
“I was so thankful that I won.”
Her mother expressed gratitude to the sponsor and hopes that the song will encourage corporate Jamaica and individual donors to help students across Jamaica to acquire tablets and laptops for online classes.