Ring in the Christmas Spirit, but just don't drive there...

Christmas...the lights, the bells...the music. The Tabernacle Christmas Choir concert on Temple Square is the perfect "ringing in" of the season. I hadn't planned on going since I applied for the tickets for my grandma. However, a series of unfortunate events put the tickets, last minute, back into my hands. I decided to go, invited some friends and off we went in plenty of time to arrive, take our seats and enjoy the show. Or so we thought...

I think it should be mandatory to post somewhere...or everywhere...when there is a Jazz game downtown. To fight the traffic caused by the Christmas concert and just the regular round of holiday shoppers would have been harrowing enough. However, if you put into the mix ten gazillion Jazz fans - all running late and running across the street at very inopportune times - you get gridlocks and traffic jams and impossibly crowded streets. After slowly moseying our way up the 5 whole streets we had to go, I finally called Emily and told her to meet me to get her tickets. That way, even if we didn't make it, I didn't have to feel bad about her not getting in. She went in and saved us a place (just in case) and we continued to make our very slow way over to the parking area. Finally - FINALLY we made the turn into the parking garage, only to be greeted with very friendly, white gloved attendents not letting us park anywhere. They waved and waved us on until I was pretty sure we were going to be heading right back out again. But finally they showed us a spot (Reserved for Maintenance it said...believe me, by this time I think I'd have been willing to do some maintenance just for the right to park there!)

We ran...RAN...up the stairs, out the door and made it across the street, becoming one of those annoying pedestrians I talked about earlier - beginning to cross on the "1" second remaining. We made our way into the building, zoomed through the metal detectors, waited while a sweet old lady looked very thoroughly through my purse, ran all the way around to our side of the building, found Emily in the middle of the row, made everyone stand up to let us in, and took our seat just before the prayer. Whew. Was it a marathon or a Christmas concert?

As we caught our breath, I looked through the program and finally realized why it was that Emily was so excited to come...the Grandpa from Gilmore Girls was the featured speaker! How sweet!

The concert was actually very good and I think worth the extra effort to get there. The guests were wonderful, the music beautiful, the organist amazing. Such a perfect way to renew the Christmas spirit in our lives. Now, if only we could find a way to arrive without the driving hassel and stress..that would be a Christmas miracle.