Lining up for Lorie Line

During the last few stops on this year's holiday tour, Lorie Line has spent countless hours in her dressing room hand gluing a thousand Swarovski crystals onto a billowing raspberry gown. After every show, her crew of 20 packs up the gear -- Christmas trees, chandelier, lush drapes and trunks and trunks of costumes -- to move to the next city.

"It's a big moving show every day," she said. "We're in the moving gear business."

The popular pianist's whirlwind holiday tour doesn't end until she collapses at her Minnetonka home on Christmas Eve, where her family has arranged the holiday festivities. "It's kind of fun because the only thing to do is open presents and eat," she said.

Her Christmas show has been an annual tradition at the Burnsville Performing Arts Center, where it draws a huge crowd. Tickets for this year's shows, selling for $47, were nearly sold out last week.

Line started by playing piano after college at Dayton's in downtown Minneapolis. After requests for CDs, she made one that Dayton's started selling. She decided to tour to five cities.

"It was huge," she said. "We did so well."

They added a few cities the next year, and "it started to explode, because it became like a Broadway show," she said.

Nancy Stone of Eagan and her family make outings to Line's holiday shows a regular event. "It's kind of the kickoff to Christmas," she said. "We make it a family holiday tradition."

"I think she's very sincere," Stone said. "She's inspirational."

Stone said she respects Line's ability to build such a successful tour and company without any business education, and she and her sisters, who all dabble in piano, love her arrangements.

"My books have been a real nice surprise part of my business," Line said. "There are so many people out there who need this music for weddings and church."

Each year, Line puts out a new CD and songbook. New this year: a book of holiday songs for kids to play.

"I've also had the pleasure of dancing the jitterbug on stage with my husband last year," she said. "I love how she gets the audience involved in her shows."

Line has turned some crowd favorites into traditions. During her "Twelve Days of Christmas" segment, Santa entertains the crowd for five minutes while Line and her crew rush the kids in the audience backstage to pull on costumes of drummers drumming and lords a-leaping.

"Sometimes that part of the show gets a standing ovation," she said, "where nothing else gets a standing ovation."

This year, for costumes, she brought out all the showstoppers from over the last 10 to 15 years, as designed by Jack Edwards, a former Guthrie designer and her designer for 15 years. "I feel honored to wear some of the things he came up with," she said. "He's very creative."

Though they took a couple of years off, partly because they were overwhelmed with orders, Line said they will have her collectible bells available again this year.