The next trip report is when some friends of ours bought us tickets to see a Holiday show called the Gift of Christmas at one of the large local churches.  She said it was something her family liked to see every year and it was nice that she included us.

On the date of the performance, I punched it into my GPS and off we went.  I was a little puzzled when we saw a huge billboard for the show and a huge church behind a large field.  But the GPS said we were 1.7 miles away.  I could see the church, but the GPS entrance was still 1.7 miles away!  I realize we're in the Bible Belt, but I was amazed at how large this church was.  It was easily the largest church I've ever seen (aside from the Vatican).  Having lived most of my life in NYC, you just don't see huge church complexes.  My idea of a big US church was St. Patrick's Cathedral.  But it's just dinky by comparison.  And it turns out it's not even on of the 5 largest churches in Texas!  Toto, we're not in New York any more.  Welcome to Prestonwood Church.

(the panoramic glowy things in the photo are all TVs!!!)

The church seated 7,000 people in its auditorium.  SEVEN THOUSAND PEOPLE.  The Paramount Theater in NY (part of Madison Square Garden) only seats half as many people.  They also had choir seating for 500 singers above the stage.  500 people in the CHOIR!  My local church back in NY was lucky to get 100 people show up for a friggin' mass.  And they had a pit for a 50 piece orchestra.  You don't even see that in Broadway theaters.  They also had large video displays for people in the Uecker seats (that's us).

So I'm expecting this high-school-musical-quality of performance, but this was actually quite good.  Mrs. Fly thought it was at least as good as the Radio City Christmas performance.  I didn't think it was as polished, but I have to cut them some slack since these people are just church members.  Some of the singers were quite good, and it wouldn't surprise me if they sang for a living around the Dallas area.  They even had some minor pyrotechnics and a bunch of acts involving flying sleds and angels.  Apparently, this church is well known for their  Holiday performances and you can get a copy on DVD (I only see MP3 downloads on Amazon).

The first half was very entertaining, as they did all the pagan songs like "Frosty the Snowman", "Rudolph", etc.  Interspersed were the commercials, where one of the ministers said a few words.  The second half was mostly religious songs, so it kind of dragged on.  It was actually a very long performance.  I was only expecting it to be like 1.5 hours, but it went on for at least 2.5.  They even had an intermission, for people to go pee.

Of course, my little pee machine (aka D) needed to go during the 3 hours we were there.  Upon entering the bathroom, it looked very nice and clean.  Yes!!!  These are all good Christians after all.  So I go into one stall and I see one of the parishoners had previously needed to exorcise some demons... out of his ass.  And it was not one of the minor demons either.  So that toilet was unusable.  I go to the other available stall and of course it was had urine on it.  Apparently the good Lord wants you to pee all over the friggin' rim so the next person can't use the toilet.  Sometimes, you need to look under the hood before you buy a car.  What looks nice on the outside may not be so nice.  Later on, I find out the church had a major sex scandal a few year back - a 53 year old minister tried to have sex with undercover 13 year old.  Shocker.

Overall, it was a positive experience.  I would like to go back again for more holiday performances, and maybe even a Sunday service.  A Sunday service?!?  Aren't you a devout atheist?  Won't your martyred Catholic ancestor be rolling in his grave that you are going to a non-Catholic church?  As I've traveled a lot, I like to see how people in different parts of the world live.  If I can go see women spitting out ping pong balls from their hootch in Bangkok, why not see a Baptist service in a mega church in Dallas?  Yes.  I just compared a tiger show to a church service.  Performance is performance after all.

Wait... who's that knocking at the door?