.and now I m out – of the Handel s Messiah sweepstakes. The sweepstakes being to write in 50 words or less Why do you love Handel s Messiah? All I can answer is one word: Hallelujah, and I don t mean the chorus, either. “Three strikes” refers to the number of times I have now been subjected to this holiday tradition. The first time I was an attendee – with thousands of other Washingtonians, in a jam-packed National Cathedral one Christmas season. The second time, while visiting my father-in-law in Manhattan during Christmas, he suggested going to Carnegie Hall to listen to Christmas music (not specified). I jumped at the chance to go to Carnegie Hall. Little did I know until I was handed the program that the Christmas music that night was Handel s Messiah. And most recently, I was sitting on my couch at home channel-surfing when I came across a Handel s Messiah rebroadcast from some famous venue in Salzburg, Austria featuring a lead singer, a maestro, an orchestra and c