christmas spirit.

i have to say that i have not really been in the christmas spirit this year. christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year, but i just wasn't feeling it this year. i don't know if it's part of getting older, stressing about my car, or just giving into the busyness of the season. well, that all changed last night.

a friend and i headed on over to one of our favorite venues in town. a smallish venue at 300 max capacity. we were going to see drew holcomb and the nieghbors. neither one of us were familiar with his music, but i had heard good things about him from other musicians in town. and i trust their opinions. so, we went. i had purchased my ticket online a few days beforehand. my friend, however, had not. so we get there to find out the show had sold out. dang.

i was standing there inside the venue trying to figure out what to do. do i stay, and make her wait out in the cold car? do i forfeit my $12 plus fees and go find something else to do? well, just then we lucked out. someone had an extra ticket. and didn't make her pay. score!

so we found the.last.table. in the place and waited for the show to start. and friends, let me tell you, i love this band. i'm kind of sad that i hadn't known about them earlier. andrea nailed it on the head when she compared them to the sixers, so i know some of my faithful readers will want to check them out just for that fact.

they played a normal set, and then took a break and played a christmas set. it was advertised as having surprise guests. so they brought out a couple dudes i had never heard of, but enjoyed. then they brought out dave barnes, which wasn't that big of a surprise to me, because i knew they were all friends. and then amy.freaking.grant. i used to be obsessed with miss grant, back in my junior high days. [you can imagine how i acted when i saw her buying cheese three years ago. my first celeb spotting after moving to nashville.] she of course sang tennessee christmas, and it was of course, perfect.

and if that wasn't magical enough, we walked out of the bar at the end of the night to discover that it was snowing. snow! now, i grew up in michigan. went to college in indiana. twenty-three years of midwest winters. i know snow. this was no real snow, by any means. but for nashville, and this early in the season, it was something to be excited about, and the perfect way to end a christmas concert and finally get me in the spirit.

merry christmas!