The Children's Holiday Concert, or Tales From the Trenches
In the matter of attending holiday musical programs put on by small children it is best to put aside all holiday-like feelings and stand ready to revert to the laws of the jungle. You may need them.
The question arises because, while there are several hundred seats in the typical civic space or church where such programs are held, there are only a smattering of honestly good seats. Let us say somewhere between three and five at the upper limit, and that is only if the lighting falls just right.
The rest, for reasons known only to the original architect, face in such a conflicting set of directions that the only thing the seated observer can see are:
(1) The side, back, other side, shoe soles, or – in the case of those sitting in the choir loft – the top of the head of the child or children they have come to see, or...
(2) A utility corridor of tool storage areas, the audio-visual equipment room, the janitor’s closet, and the room where they stockpile ice salt and snow removal equipment, or…
(3) Other adults of a milling or fluttering nature who seem to be acting out a play entitled The Fallen Nature of Man, fitting enough for a church, I suppose, if that is the home of this occasion, who are quickly and efficiently reverting to a primitive state in their own search for seats. As the starting time of the program ticks nearer their behavior seems a bit like evolution in reverse.
These available locations are poor and provide a seating situation which is the opposite of what you want, which is to gain a straight line of sight to the young cherubs in order that you can:
(1) Spring up out of nowhere and at unusual times like a maniacal jack-in-the-box in a spooky movie in order to take an action photo and…
(2) Take the longest possible time standing to take that picture, somewhere between a minute and a half and three quarters of an hour, while...
(2) Blocking everyone else’s shots of the same scene for the duration.
Since the only three to five worthwhile seats are taken – they are taken, my friend, they are taken, just get used to it, family members have been sitting there in shifts since the 4th of July, I'll explain this in a second – you will be casting about for other options.
Overhanging upper levels, balconies, and choir lofts are interesting places to end up if you have never been to one. And if you are truly desperate.
You know, ever since there was a trend of deepening the floor space at ground level and putting the singers and the pipe organ facing the congregation at eye level, these old choir lofts and architectural overhangs haven't been much used at all.
This means that they have become one of those places where small animals come from across the local ecosystem to die and mummify.
You will be sharing the evening with these fine ex-beings so get to know them as best you can and stifle the screams of the people around you, who can’t believe that you have taken them up here at all. Explain to any small ones that this too is part of the Great Circle of Life.
Below you things are getting interesting.
A civic center or church is ordinarily a setting of hushed decorum where shoving matches, taunts, insults, trash-talking, feuds of the Hatfield-McCoy or Montague-Capulet variety, or actual blows to the body and face are not only deemed intrusive but are actively discouraged.
While there is a certain amount of controlled violence in other situations, say on the front lines of professional and college football games and within what I believe is called the ‘scrum’ in the game of rugby, most commentators are united in suggesting that such activity is out of place in a community gathering place or a house of worship.
No matter. Civilization kind of comes and goes on these occasions meant to celebrate the progress of man, like a radio signal that fades in and out, and in any event something as trivial as civilization mustn’t get in the way of the ultimate goal.
It is the whole strategy of the event to gain one, or several, or an entire pew’s length of serviceable seats and then hold them against hell and high water until the rest of the lacrosse team I mean family members arrive to take the field I mean settle into a state of spiritual contemplation.
What are they doing in this interim period, these other family members who are not there?
In other words, if they’re so hot to trot to see this program why don’t they simply come to the program in a timely manner like ordinary human beings, instead of arriving at the last minute like rock stars who have helicoptered into the stadium?
They may have important things to do I suppose, supervising brain transplants perhaps, or communicating with other galaxies who have chosen this very hour to suddenly strike up a conversation, or inventing time travel machines. These things happen, these schedule conflicts, and sometimes can’t be avoided.
Thus the advance guards, the landing parties, the scouting missions now underway, these milling and fluttering platoons that I speak of.
If you are going to behave so ridiculously it is best to send someone in early on offense who has a very high specific weight and a very low center of gravity, a mix between the fellow who hikes the ball in football and an anvil from a blacksmith’s shop in the Middle Ages.
If you have two of these fellows you can place one at each end of the row where they plug the passage from entry like a pipe welded shut at both ends, letting no one in, while the long expanse of empty seats between them, perfectly placed for cherub-viewing, just sits there unattainable, clearly visible to anyone walking by, or through binoculars from the parking lot if you are out there getting the lay of the land.
Arriving early is the basic blocking and tackling associated with this game. Anywhere from 12 hours to five days in advance is advised.
You have seen no doubt television stories of customers camping out in front of stores prior to the release of new phones or other electronics, but these outings have the characteristic of a lark or a photo opportunity.
No, in the deadly serious business of claiming seats for the Children’s Holiday Program, you must plant yourself early, fend off all potential rivals, and never budge. You are your own little homeless camp for this length of time and separate from civilized society. This is just as well, considering the ordeal to come.
Once inside, as in chess, it is important to deploy your forces with care.
The sprint to the pews is important – starting blocks as they use in track and field events may be considered – but that is a moment that comes and goes quickly.
No, you are in it for the long game, the marathon not the sprint, and you must gain and hold the high ground against all attackers.
Certain players, like pawns, you can afford to lose in combat, others have to be protected since they have the camera or, if female and of a certain age, because they can muster the most fearsome stares when anyone walks by daring to question why it is that three people need two entire rows that will seat 103.
You have seen these fine women out and about at the grocery store and the dry cleaners and have exchanged cheery greetings with them there. If asked, you would have called them excellent conversationalists and jovial companions.
That was then.
That was before they turned into The Granite Queen, or The Wrathmaker, or The Glance of Death.
Who knows where they come from, these looks they deploy?
They seem, these fine women, to be reaching back into the primitive subconscious swamp of the species, way back behind the pineal gland maybe, and hauling to shore an ancient emotion meant in the old days to stare down saber-toothed tigers.
It is a study in sociology to observe, say, a youngish couple come in to the back of the building.
By their reaction this may be the first of these events that they have come to. Their kid is up there and it is a point of pride that he, and they too, have graduated to these current activities. Their eyes are innocent and filled with the happy light of anticipation.
My goodness, seeing them you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The young man in particular seems to have expected a scattering of participants sprinkled around a near-empty interior, huddled together for warmth and company.
He did not expect it to look like the football stadium on Game Day of the college he attended right before kickoff, with rivalrous passions running high and old resentments coming to the fore.
Surveying the scene before them, his wife nudges him forward with an elbow move that seems to insist upon some action, however fruitless.
And fruitless, my friend, it is. The situation is obvious to the least observant, which however does not include the young man in question.
Because to him, the young warrior, the landscape presents a field of crowded pews interspersed with nearly empty ones. Many and many a nearly-empty pew.
This seems a matter easily solved!
Just inquire politely, let the people courteously step aside for a moment, and then slide in and occupy a few seats in the empty pews!
It is simply the case that these individuals just haven't noticed that they are blocking the scores of pews they occupy, seemingly for All Time.
Or alternately he merely has to ask the fine people in the occupied pews if they can smoosh together a bit so that he and his wife can sit down within viewing distance of their child.
He gestures such to one row and then another, and then still another, and in various cases he is met with:
(1) The offended stare of one of the first class, high-end Glowerers that stop him dead in his tracks and move him to apologize for existing.
(2) The subtle punch to the solar plexus delivered by those hiking the ball/anvil guys.
(3) Or, if the weather outside is right, light beatings to the upper body by elderly women wielding umbrellas.
It’s the Glowerers that really get to him, as they seem each time they look at him to have released some secret alien ray designed to sap him of his strength.
He whimpers back to the vestibule, where he expects, it seems, to gain sympathy from his young wife for the effort he has put forth and the humiliation he has endured.
You don’t want to tell him, ‘just wait till you get home, my friend, just wait till you get home.'
And she’s ordinarily so nice!
He considers now that as they walked in he had seen suspicious characters in the shadows, inviting with a nod or a quick gesture a furtive conversation.
He realizes now what they are and how foolish he was to brush by them. Scalpers! He hurries out to see what they have left and wonders if they will accept his heirloom pocket watch in exchange for at least one ticket. Perhaps they'll consider the title to his car.
Well and then the program proper starts and the children really are cherubic, brimming over with happy fervor, their hearts as full of pure shining goodness as you can get, including even the two boys, one a tuba player and one on the French horn, who seem to have dared one another to play the theme from Jaws under even the most lilting holiday offering as though the shark is going to leap to the surface and take the melody between its teeth.
The violinists join their instruments to the singers as the members of the choir lift their chins and the combined sweetness of harmony rises to the rafters.
There are a certain number of spotlights involved and the angles are such that you can tell that the young people can't really see out into the crowd gathered there before them for the light shining against their eyes. Which is just as well.
Some sights just aren't meant for children.
