Tales Of Christmas Past

I’d love to write a post about ghosts and visions  and Scrooge and Tiny Tim . But about all that this will have in common with A Christmas Carol is the phrase ” God bless us every one ” . My tale of Christmas Past goes back to 1982 and takes place in Columbus, Ga where we were living at the time .

i often refer to this as part of my previous life when I was employed in a textile company credit union . Being December we were extremely busy lending money and only being a 2 person operation, I was working a lot of ( unpaid ) overtime . So it was not very smart for me to get involved in a very time consuming activity since I had almost no time . But I took the plunge anyway and volunteered  to be a part of the crew for our (   First Baptist ) church’s initial presentation of The Living Christmas Tree .

Our music minister was Ron Collins who was one of the originators of the living or singing Christmas tree as it is variously termed . He was ably assisted by a choir of 70 ( of whom my wife was a member ) , an orchestra, numerous people involved in construction of the tree , lighting , sound  and technical people , costumers , dramatic people , decorators    and others I can scarcely remember . All in all , I suppose 125-150 people, some of them doing double duty .

Not being musical or terribly talented in . in  much of anything else , I ended up as one of two people running lights . We sat a small consoles at the back of the auditorium with a gentleman in between who really knew music . He coordinated our lighting  work with the music . It sounds so simple to write but simple it was not .

I could write forever i suppose but wil try to narrow things a bit . On Thursday before the first of 7 presentations that began on Friday, rehersal went until about 11 PM . I had a terribly demanding day lined up at work so as i recall, Iarrived at 5 AM and worked until 5PM at which time I raced to the church, fortunately only a few blocks away .

The electricity was definitely in the air , would things work, what would people think etc . I remember being so very nervous and not wanting to be the schmuck who messed it all up . The  choir entered in darkness , singing as they  mounted the 35 ft tall metal tree, gorgeously decorated with ornaments , lights and greenery . When the lights first came up it was as aif a collective Ohhhh arose from the crowd of 600 or so . I get chills even now remembering . It was a wonderful thing to experience , even as a small cog and I have been thankful for it ever since .

Shalom.