What's Christmas Without a Little MoTab?

This morning we went to a Christmas concert.

A couple of months ago, I stumbled upon a request form for tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert online.  I decided it would be a fun holiday activity for the whole family, so I entered our request for 4 tickets.  There were 4 performance options and you had to list your preference order from 1 to 4.  My first choice was Friday night, followed by Saturday, Sunday, then Thursday.  The chances of getting the tickets was pretty slim, because it is a VERY popular free concert.

So, imagine my surprise and delight when 4 tickets for the Sunday morning concert arrived in the mail a couple of weeks later!

We woke up to a freezing fog.  It was probably only about 12*F outside.  There wasn't much traffic, seeing as it was a Sunday morning, and I bet at least 1/3 of all the cars headed north on the freeway with us were all headed the same place we were.  When we got to downtown SLC, the line of cars trying to get to the parking lots closest to the Conference Center was immense!  So we skipped it and drove off on our own to a parking garage farther away, then walked.  Yes, it was a cold walk, but I swear we got there sooner than if we had been in that monster line of cars.

Images of the Salt Lake Temple in the fog.  There were literally thousands of people all around us, so it felt festive and yet peaceful all at the same time.  I have to say, it is incredible how streamlined and efficient  the church volunteers are at getting everyone inside, through security, and seated!  The security is probably always there, but we were so lucky to have Sunday tickets for one special reason.  I think the security was there because the prophet and president of the church, President Thomas S. Monson, was in attendance at this performance!  When he walked in, the entire room silently stood in respect as he took his seat with the audience.

And when I say the entire room, that is no small thing!  The Conference Center has a seating capacity of 21,333 people!  Nearly every seat was filled for this concert (and I am sure for the 3 preceding concerts).  It is a truly immense space!  We were sitting on the terrace level.

The concert was a combination of singing by The Choir (there is really only one great American Choir) and an Opera baritone named Nathan Gunn, recitations by Jane Seymour, music by a master organist, the Orchestra at Temple Square, and Bells on Temple Square, and dancing.  So really, a little of everything!  One interesting note, the large screens on the walls allow the audience to see the zoomed in images that are broadcast to TV, and when the cameras zoomed in on the ballet dancers in center stage just blow the choir, we recognized one of them!  Her name is Rachelle, and she just retired as the principal ballerina at Utah Regional Ballet, where Helena used to dance.  She is such a sweet girl and it was fun to recognize someone we knew personally in the performance!

At one point during the performance, the announcer came on stage to ask the audience a favor.  Apparently, during his rendition of "T'was the Night Before Christmas", Nathan Gunn does something funny that gets the audience laughing.  The audio recording department wanted a 'clean take' because they are creating a DVD of this year's performance to be released next year.  So they asked an audience of 21,000 to just smile and not laugh at the funny spot.  And you know what?  It was done!  Other than one or two people who seemed to have no self control, that is.  But they were up in the terrace, so I don't think it would have been a problem.

The first half of the performance was actually the live broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word".  "Music and the Spoken Word" is the longest running live broadcast program in history.  It first aired on the radio in 1929.  There is a blurb about it on the back of the second program (the one pictured below).  It says that the first announcer had to stand on a ladder to speak into the single microphone, which was hanging from the ceiling.  He stayed on that ladder for the entire performance.  He also had to wait for a telegraph signal to let him know when to start the show.

It is so incredible to think how much things have changed!  This was a high tech and VERY professionally run show.  If you have ever watched it (you can usually find it on your local PBS station) you would never know that there are over 20,000 people in a live audience watching it happen.

It was a fun morning and a great way to start off Christmas vacation!