Christmas Anecdotes

See “Christmas 8 A: Personal Christmas Anecdotes–The Santa Schtick” (http://tiny.cc/zm3ys) What follows are anecdotes not personal in nature but interesting, encouraging, and inspirational.

Ever wonder why the audience customarily stands during performances of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus?” I used to think it was out of reverence for the explicit Christian meaning of that ending to the second part of his Messiah,

Apparently, I was wrong, at least according to the Choral Society of the Moriches, (New York), which explains in its program for its 2010 Christmas concert that it was all a misunderstanding.

It seems England’s King George II attended the less than sell-out first performance of Messiah at the Covent Garden in 1743 and, being hard of hearing, thought he heard the first strains of the British national anthem when the “Hallelujah Chorus” began and so leapt to his feet with the rest of the audience following suit.

I doubt anyone had the heart or nerve to tell George he was mistaken and, as a result, audiences have been rising to their feet for 267 years ever since which, whatever its origins, is still a nice tradition.

Less historically-amusing was a grinch attack on the Payne County Bank in Perkins, Oklahoma by Federal Reserve bank examiners. It wasn’t exactly a sneak attack since it had been scheduled, just like the one at the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” just before Angel Second Class Clarence Odbody saves George Bailey’s life but this time there was no Odbody available and it wasn’t a matter of life or death anyway.

It was a matter of politically-correct grinchism which concluded with proof that we can indeed still fight city hall, and Washington.

The Feds had their PC noses out of joint because of “a Bible verse of the day, [posted on the bank's website] crosses on the teller’s counter, and buttons that say ‘Merry Christmas, God With Us,’ “ all federal crimes or at least deemed ”inappropriate” by government lackeys. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3086)