Smoothing wrinkles from face of Christmas

All season, I kept calling the Living Christmas Tree production the “Singing Christmas Tree,” because that’s what they called it years ago in Sacramento. My kids kept correcting me. Living Christmas Tree. Living Christmas Tree.
I can’t get it right partly because in my mind a living Christmas tree is a potted Christmas tree -- as opposed to one that’s been hacked down.
I avoided the production in Sacramento because the flashing neon Budweiser lights and overly orchestrated modern music seemed tacky and overly sentimental. It wasn’t my thing.
My boys played in the orchestra this year, Richard on violin and Michael on trumpet. They rehearsed frequently and I had many occasions to misname the production and to stand corrected.
Art and I decided to attend the final production, the one with the violin/cello duet. We know the cello player and we know that Ricky Faflak is very good at what he does.
Now, I usually don’t get emotional from Living Christmas Tree type of music. I wasn’t expecting any deep spiritual epiphanies from the Living Christmas Tree. It’s just not the kind of production that would move me. Productions, in general, don't move me.
This time, however, the music was moving. Every so often there was a building crescendo that stirred me.
So I was transported to the miracle of the incarnation time and time again, and helped, rather than hindered, by the music.
But there was a problem. Two women sitting behind me decided that the Living Christmas Tree concert was the perfect place to hold a loud, running conversation. Every time I felt my spirits start to soar at the music, I’d catch another snippet of their conversation. It began to get extremely irritating.
I ignored their skin cream discussion as much as possible, but it returned every time the music began to move me.
I clenched my teeth.
At one point I thought I would turn around and stand up, and say to them, “I hope the concert isn’t interfering too much with your conversation. Would you like me to ask the director, Dave Eckert, to pause every once in a while so you can continue your discussion without all this loud, distracting music?”
But, of course, I didn’t.
Instead, I just seethed over their bad manners.
Here was a concert centered around the most important historical moment on earth: the coming of God in human flesh to redeem fallen mankind. And these women were only concerned about SKIN CREAM?
At that moment, either conscience or the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and whispered: Here is a concert centered around the most important historical moment on earth…and you are only concerned about the conversation of these women?
Ouch.