The last few years your Mom and I have attended the Xavier High School Christmas program. It runs for 10 days. It is really simple and is basically for kids. They have lots of penguins, silly animals and a "twirp Christmas Choir" composed of little boys and girls under the age of 8. There is nothing pretentious, just plain folk doing basic Christmas routines.
Last Saturday we attended the afternoon performance of the Christmas program. As the performance got close to intermission, little children dressed as "snowflake" ballerinas were prancing around the stage. Two ballerinas hooked up in a harness began to descend as floating snowflakes from high above the stage creating a nostalgic effect. Simultaneous an annoying sound began to accompany the Christmas music almost like announcing the snowflakes were approaching from up above. The annoying sound did not stop when "child snowflakes" had fallen. In fact the annoying sound kept going. Enough already!
People began to understand that the annoying sound was the fire alarm. Normally you would see people rushing to the exits. The crowd was great-grandparents, grandparents, parents. and little kids. Nobody rushed anywhere! Somebody had to actually announce that the loud sound was a fire alarm and that the auditorium had to be evacuated. By the time the elderly lumbered to the aisles and wheelchairs and supporting walkers were activated, we could have had lunch, Conversations broke out everywhere as people discussed the season and kidded about the evaculation. Nobody got trampled.
It seemed that the alert was not serious because there was never smoke or even a hint of fire. So we stood in the cold outdoors as the fire department had to arrive and do a walk through to find the cause of the alarm. It seemed like forever, probably because it was so cold. A lot of people didn't have coats because they left them in the car as they were let off at the entrance when they arrived.
After twenty minutes and a cold toush, we were finally told the building was safe. So the elderly crowd slowly waned their way back to the seats and the performance continued.
What happened you ask? Let your imagination work. The building was filled with small kids and fire alarms placed everywhere with either a button to push or a lever to pull. Some innocent little cherob activated an alarm and probably got the scare of his/her life. You might say they rang the bell of their life.
So our Christmas this year will be memorable. "Ringing the bell" has an all new meaning. Hey, it isn't as bad as someone pushing over the Christmas tree.
The lesson Grasshoppers is that it is Christmas Season and it doesn't pay to get your shorts in a bunch. Some cute little "Christmas Munchkin" activated the fire alarm system. What is the big deal? That curious little munchkin may turn out to be President someday.
Love,
Dad