My mom and I arrived a little before noon, driving past Moravian College, the 6th oldest in the United States (founded in 1742). There was an art fair on Main Street, so we browsed the booths set up in front of handsome brick buildings, the familiar red facades of Pennsylvania.

The Moravian Book Shop took up several storefronts and included a gift shop and cafe, where we had lunch - quiche and salad followed by delicious rice pudding. A man was happily giving away samples of chocolates at one table while a woman - Ukrainian on one side of her family, American Indian and Pennsylvania Dutch on the other - painted intricate designs on eggs. Easter eggs in the Christmas City.

A little before two we headed south across the Lehigh River, empty steel mills rusting on our left. Mom said that there were plans to build a casino on the site. Gambling in the Christmas City.

Well-dressed people walked the sloping paths of Lehigh University - blue blazers and grey slacks were in abundance, and bow ties occasionally appeared under heads that looked professorial. Trees wore fresh green leaves and the dogwoods blazed.

Packer Memorial Church was packed. Our seats were in the north transept, close to the orchestra and 70-plus choir, and with an unobstructed view of the gorgeous stained glass windows.

The conductor appeared, and the music began: J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor. The church filled with an exquisite, moving, ageless music. H.L. Mencken used to come up from Baltimore for this festival - this was the 101st - and in one of his articles about it he surmised that even if no one came to hear them, the Bach choir of Bethlehem would still sing, with the same passion and conviction, the music of the great German composer.

It is probably true, but it was not a thought that occurred to me on Saturday. Because the audience was large, and wrapt, and rose in enthusiastic applause after the appropriate period of silence that followed the last note. When the conductor Greg Funfgeld spoke at the end, he thanked the audience for its support during his 25 years at the helm. To which a man in the pew across the aisle from us shouted, "Thank YOU!"