The holidays are coming on like a runaway Polar Express, and we’re all looking for great values, right? Here’s the best one in town: The Air Force Academy Band’s annual “Holly and Ivy” concert at the Pikes Peak Center on Dec. 12 and 13.

The Academy Band, which is staffed by professional musicians, not cadets, is considered among the best bands in the region. Many of the musicians also play in the Colorado Springs Philharmonic.

The annual concert, which will feature tunes from classic holiday films, is free.

OK, your tax dollars subsidize it, but still.

The band serves as a kind of public relations arm of the Air Force, touring the world to musically spread the love.

“As much as we travel, it’s always fun to come home,” said the group’s commander,  Col. Larry H. Lang. “It’s a packed house every year. They keep turning out for us, and that’s just fantastic.”

In addition to such holiday standards as “White Christmas” and “Silver Bells,” the “Holly and Ivy” program will include music from the movie “Pearl Harbor,” commemorating the 70th anniversary of the infamous attack.

“It’s one of our great honors to pay tribute to veterans,” Lang said. “I don’t know if we’ll have any Pearl Harbor vets, but we’ll certainly have World War II veterans.”

Lang also stresses that the Academy Band represents not just veterans and active-duty personnel from the Air Force but from every branch of the services.

Three members of the Fourth Infantry Division of the Fort Carson Band will join the group, and that group’s conductor will conduct one of the songs in “Holly and Ivy.”

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Air Force Academy Band Photo by Photo credit: Christian Murdock