Friday 12/11

Friday 12/11 8.30pm

Did chores. Nuff said.

Carol came over about 11am and asked if I wanted to go with her to a Christmas Concert this evening. It's so nice to be asked out! I said yes. We left about 6.30 to go to the Univ. campus, Tays Hall.

Well! Not at all what either of us expected. Billed as the Community Choir and Orchestra, we expected lots of traditional noels and sing-alongs.

What we got was a badly produced revival meeting.

The choir was about 40 strong and sounded pretty good, except for the soloists, who all sang flat. Of course, they were mostly in the dark as the lighting was terrible, and they were hard to hear because the audio was badly balanced. And the whole choir was massed to one side of the large proscenium, spilling off the apron onto the floor. A large cross was set up in the center of the apron.

The orchestra, which we couldn't see at all, was over-miked and tended to drown out all but the whole choir.

And in between each song, many of which were unfamiliar, someone would rhapsodize about the birth of the baby Jesus and his wonderfulness, or a pastor would give a mini-sermon.

The program was: O Come O Come Emmanuel; You Better Get Ready; Gloria in Excelsis Deo (they mispronounced "excelsis"); Wise Men from the East; Soli Deo Gloria; What Kind of King; Infant Heart of God; Only Love; Silent Night; Christmas Chorale and Carols (with a children's choir called Special Blessing); Tell It on the Mountain; and Joy Joy Joy.

I was very good, if I do say so myself. I snickered quietly to myself, when I wasn't wincing at the awfulness of the "concert."

Turns out this was sponsored by 17 (17!) churches in the area. So much for being a "community" concert. They even had a little form in the program where you could write down your problem and, if you wished someone to pray with you, your contact info. Teenagers came around and collected these in baskets (one guy had breasts bigger than mine and really needed a bra). I expected a collection plate at any moment.

Hope I have more fun going to Mescalero tomorrow.