Tickets available for annual event

Tickets are going quickly for the four performances of Abilene Baptist Church's 29th annual Singing Christmas Tree.

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The year's program is The Music Box Shoppe, and it tells the story of a store in a big city where customers are shopping for music boxes for Christmas, said Abilene music minister Tommy Sunderland. As the customers look at the boxes, the shop keeper will explain the meaning of the carols they play, he said.

Performances begin Friday, Dec. 7, and continue through Sunday, Dec. 9. The free performances begin each evening at 7, with a matinee at 3 p.m. Sunday.

The performance incorporates live-action drama, the church's orchestra and more than 100 choir members positioned in real greenery to look like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

Sunderland, who returned this year to Abilene as music minister after working the past nine years at churches in Atlanta and Richmond Hill, said he would like to see the county's newcomers experience the tree for the first time.

"In the nine years I've been gone, a whole bunch of folks have moved to Columbia County," he said. "They need to experience this. It's a really unique thing."

Sunderland said tickets have been claimed "like crazy" since the church opened tickets to the public Monday.

Free tickets are available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and Friday 9 a.m. to noon, at the church office at 3917 Washington Road in Martinez.