The Christmas Madrigal

Cheryl and I have been looking forward to "a night out" for quite some time. The typical December activities, both with church and school, have kept us busy enough that we struggle to find time to spend together, just ourselves.

The Great Lakes Christian College in Lansing puts on a Christmas Madrigal Dinner every year, and, having never attended one before, this year we decided to do just that. We were told that tickets would go quickly, so we purchased tickets about a month ago when they were first available.

Naturally, the weather was threatening to make our journey challenging; a big storm was forecast to come in during the evening. Just to be safe, we packed some bags with extra clothes and boots and heavy coats. (I always keep extra water and food in the car during the winter.)

It turned out that we didn't need to make use of the emergency supplies. The freezing weather held off long enough that we only met up with some cold rain on the way home.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Christmas Madrigal Dinner was held in a very ornate old Methodist church right across the street from the State Capitol building. We were met at the door by a couple of Medieval guards who graciously held open the door for us. Then we waited in the lobby for a few minutes while the final preparations were being made, after which we were taken to our table by a very gracious hostess.

The interior of the church reminded me of a classic Italian villa, with an inner courtyard surrounded by balconied rooms. We sat at tables arranged in the inner "courtyard" (which is not really a courtyard as I understand the word, because it is not open to the sky overhead, but covered with a ceiling) and listened to the authentic flute/violin/harpsichord music which was being played live.

The Madrigal play was the story of a contest between the sons and daughters of the Court Jester to decide which one would replace him, as he was getting old and sick. The puns and word plays were flying pretty thick throughout. The Lords and Ladies of the court, who sat at a banquet table onstage overlooking the audience, interjected commentary on the performance of each of the Jester's children as they attempted to display their talents; additionally, in-between the Acts of the play, they sang very pretty choruses.

At specific times during the presentation, the Host would direct a specific course to be served - salad, main course, dessert - so that the dinner was incorporated naturally into the flow of the play. Then after the play was concluded (with a moral ending, of course!), the Lords and Ladies of the court performed a set of Christmas songs (including two that I'd sung back when I was in high school).

The food was very good; the company at our table was pleasant and friendly. After it was all done - it took about three hours for the entire madrigal - we ran into a few friends and visited them for awhile before leaving to see the big Christmas Tree out in front of the Capitol.

We hung outside for a few minutes, noticing that there wasn't any snow falling ... yet. But the snow was predicted closer to home, and we figured on running into it as we drove back. So we drove on home, expecting any moment to run into some kind of traffic mess.

It never materialized.

In fact, we got all the way home without any trouble at all! And the kids were (mostly) in bed, too!

Which was a good thing, because I was too exhausted to deal with them by the time we got home.