I had the pleasure last night of catching a trombonist friend play a Christmas concert in Oakdale, Pa. with the really, truly talented Trinity Jazz Orchestra. My second visit to a church in the past few days — the first was that Bert Jansch show at the First Unitarian Church on Friday — and my second Christmas concert in just as many days (remember Banjo Night?). Not too shabby for a little curly-haired Jewish girl.

The performance took place half a block from a Stars Hollowish* town square (complete with a gazebo for a Lorelai and Luke rendezvous*) at the Oakdale United Presbyterian Church’s Youth and Family Center in a Miss Patty’s Ballet Barn*-type room with basketball hoops and Jesus iconography in the stained glass windows. There was sheet cake with thick, sweet frosting, hot decaf, and peppermint cocoa with miniature marshmallows.

Trinity Jazz Orchestra is actually ummm a Christian big band. I know, I know. But despite the fact that Christmas is actually a Christian holiday — a fact that escapes most Americans, I’ve been told — the concert kept its Christian-ness pretty restrained, with the exception of the bandleader’s proclamation at one point of, “Thank you for Christ being born and saving us from all of Satan’s powers.” Verbatim.

*Sigh… Gilmore Girls.