Christmas Festival Faithful Line Up Early for Tickets

By: Haley Miller ('07)
November 6, 2006; 4:33 p.m. 

They came two hours early, some armed with lawn chairs to ease their wait outside the dark box office. You'd have thought they were there for tickets to see somebody like Mick Jagger.

As it turns out, they were groupies. But not of the Stones variety. These faithful were groupies of Capital's Chapel Choir, waiting patiently for the box office to open and their chance to purchase the best seats available for this year's Christmas Festival concerts, "Let All the World in Every Corner Sing!"

The Christmas Festival, featuring the Chapel Choir, Choral Union, Women's Chorus and a variety of instrumentalists, is a long-standing tradition enjoyed by the university, its friends and the greater Columbus community. Many of the eager ticket-buyers have been coming to the Christmas Festival for as long as they can remember.

Mary Clark Long, a 1937 Capital graduate and former member of both the Chapel Choir and Choral Union, said that she has been coming every year since she was a student. She and her friend, Georgia Wegmeyer, arrived at 8:15 a.m. with folding chairs so as not to miss their chance for great seats. Georgia has been attending the festival for 22 years. Her husband, Norman ('45), sang in the Chapel Choir while he was an undergraduate and seminary student and later sang in the Choral Union.

Another woman who was waiting in the snaky line said that she has been coming to the festival since 1975. Her friend, a 1960 Capital graduate, commented on how the Christmas Festival has changed over the years. "I'm very pleased with the current choral director because she brought back a lot of tradition. When you get old, tradition becomes very important to you."

Haley Miller, a 2007 Capital graduate, majored in English literature and communication, and worked as an intern in the Public Relations and Marketing Office.