Christmas in Chicago

I tried so hard not to title this post "Christmas in Chicago." I really did. But when they sing the damn song for the finale AND the encore, it's nigh impossible to get it out of your head for several hours thereafter.

Lemme 'splain.

We went to the annual symphony+chorus Christmas show downtown today. My aunt (the same one from the previous post) sings alto and managed to get us some really good seats. The show was better than the last time I'd seen it. It changes every year, of course, but the old format of "let's do some goony plot with Santa" was held back until after the intermission, so the first hour was great. They didn't even bring out the obligatory children's ensemble until the second hour, so we got to hear all-pro music for a while.

THEN they did the goony plot with Santa. It wasn't bad, but... well, they always end it with a song by Gary Fry, who is known more for writing commercial jingles than Christmas classics. The score in question is "Christmas in Chicago," which sounds very much like a pitch for tourism and very little like something you'd gather around the piano to sing after Christmas dinner. And then there's a grand finale where the plot with Santa gets a happy ending... and then the encore, where they sing the tourism board's favorite carol AGAIN.

Drives me nuts every damn time. I can never walk away from the show with Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming or even the Carol of the Bells in my head, no. I'm bound to come away with "Christmas in Chicago, is my kind of Christmas, it's like no other Christmas at all~" going over and over and over again.

Cheers to the Chicago Symphony and Chorus, nonetheless. Great performance.

(And Fry, you get a pass THIS time because you did a good arranging job on some other tracks. Next year, coal.)