Each Christmas I try and attend the Messiah Community sing at St. Olaf's Catholic Church in downtowm Minneapolis. I begin thinking about it in fall, when the first chill is in the air, and thoughts turn to the coming winter and Christmas.
It's always on a Sunday night downtown. If the weather is bad, or really cold, I think about backing out. That happened this year. It was around 8 or 9F when the concert started. But for the 8th year in a row, excluding the covid cancellations, we went, my wife and I.
While I am not a singer there is this really good sense of Christmasing that comes over me when the music starts. I let go with my permanently off key rendition of the masterpiece. The crowd is a mix. Many like me, who welcome the large crowd to drown out their mistakes. Others, professional or semi-so, lift high their beautiful voices to proclaim "unto to us a child is born" "speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem" 'they have turn-ed every one to his own way" "He shall reign for ever and ever" "by his stripes we are healed".
They are dressed in suits, smart Christmas dresses, elf costumes, Santa hats, buffalo plaid shirts and dresses. A gathering of devout followers of the true Messiah and a few, perhaps, non-believers. All drawn by the spell of Christmas into something deeper than elf on the shelf and Christmas cookies.
Christmas. Christmas. Christmas.
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