White Christmas

I have always loved old movies, especially ones about Christmas.  Holiday Inn and White Christmas have been favorites of mine since I was a little girl.  When I saw that Le Petit Theatre, the oldest continuously operating theatre in the country, was hosting a production of White Christmas, I just knew we had to go.  So yesterday, my parents, my sister, Mark, and me went down to the Quarter to Le Petit to see the show.  It was such a wonderful treat to get to see.  The actors were amazing, and the orchestra was perfection.  At the very end, the entire ensemble closed the show with White Christmas and as they began singing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" snow machines at both corners of the stage began projecting these tiny bubbles that look and feel like snow into the audience.  It was truly magical.  The entire theatre had been transformed into a winter wonderland and the adults were smiling as brightly as the children.  The cast invited the audience to sing a long, and before you knew it, every person packed into this sweet little theatre was singing White Christmas as snow fell from the sky.  It was the best start to Christmas I have had in a long time.

As the actors took their bows and gave their thanks to the orchestra, they closed the show with a little gift for us, their audience.  They shouted "This is for You, Merry Christmas, New Orleans!"  And the orchestra began to play When the Saints Go Marching In.  I got a little teary because it was just one of those moments when you know you're in a special place.  In no other theatre in the world was this happening.  An impromptu pep rally broke out and everyone was smiling and clapping and dancing and we still believed in our boys.  I don't know if it was just that that moment was filled with such pure joy or not, but it was the most beautiful rendition of that song I have heard in a long time.  I saw more than one adult wipe away a tear as they swayed to the sound of the trumpet.  And I looked around and thought Only in New Orleans.  Only in New Orleans.