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An Event To Feed Body, Holiday Spirit

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: December 5, 2008

My Aunt Pat called last week to remind us we were coming to the Christmas show at her church. I remembered sighing to myself last year when she first called to invite us. I knew about church Christmas pageants, having been in enough of them. But there was no escape.

I think we personally own 37 hours of fuzzy, out-of-focus videos of each of our three boys doing Christmas programs as shepherds, wise men or just horsing around in the choir while trying to mouth words to carols they didn't really know.

At the Lutheran churches where I grew up, the Christmas show was pretty basic. Lutherans tend to specialize more in potluck dinners than they do in Christmas spectacle.

Fortunately for my mom I usually was a shepherd, which was easy to put together with a bathrobe, a towel and some sandals.

It was easier than being a sheep, which called for ruining a few sheets

Angels were a little more difficult because of the wings thing. I recall one Christmas show where an angel managed to get his coat hanger wing caught up in the Christmas star wire. The star and the angel ended up crashing somewhere behind the stable. They should have called the show "A Wing and A Prayer."

Anyhow, that's what I expected when Aunt Pat called. Then she added that you had to buy tickets and make reservations. That was never a problem when we put on our shows. The only crowd was the place where the fathers stood up near the front with their Instamatics. They get those treasured shots that, when developed, never had enough light to capture much more than a blur of shepherds and angels.

Who Needs Rockettes?

So you can understand when I say we were overwhelmed at the show at my aunt's church, which was better than about any production I've seen without Rockettes.

It turns out her church's music director is Wilhelm Goetze.

Here's a guy who has taught music and organ at Columbia University and the Peabody Conservatory and spends his summers giving recitals in the concert halls of Europe.

But I have to say his real talent is being related to Donovan Peters. Peters also is known as "The Piano Man." Maybe you're seen his act at Universal Studios, where he has been a regular for years. This guy is so good he does dueling pianos with himself. He is in the show.

What I'm saying is the Christmas show at the Lutheran Church of our Savior on Hillsborough Avenue in Town 'N Country at 8 p.m. Dec. 12 is nothing short of spectacular.

In the interest of full disclosure I need to add this likely will get me in good for one of my aunt's Sunday fried chicken dinners. But it really is a good show.

An Excellent Cause

You have to have tickets and they are available for $15 by calling (813) 884-1232. All proceeds - and this is the real reason for this - go to the Kaye Proxe food bank.

There is an almost desperate need for money for this food bank, which gets support from Incarnation Catholic, First Reformed Church and Wesley Memorial Methodist.

They are serving almost 100 families on a regular basis and a growing number of homeless people.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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