Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 December 2004 13:46:15
What my teachers used to call it when you wrote an essay that just dumped every fact you knew about a subject onto the paper without structuring it properly. I'm going to TRY not to do that now, but with Christmas over and no time to blog for three days, it's difficult.
Christmas Eve seems an appropriate place to start. Magical and mad in turns. Got home from work at 5ish (a new record!) and got a call at 5:30 to say that the lady who was supposed to be playing the piano for the Asylum Seekers service couldn't make it. I had to play - and i haven't touched a Christmas carol on the keyboard all year. But the service went well, if chaotically. We had singers, and even a little sermon. They talked all the way through it, of course - it was rather like the Sermon on the Mount bit from Life of Brian. But I think it was great to tell the Good News where people really needed it on Christmas night. Then we distributed our presents to the asylum seekers, which was good too. Hopefully we gave them stuff they needed and appreciated, and christmas there would have been dull enough without any of it.
Then it was my turn for a bit of self-indulgence. Midnight Mass at my old church (relatively high anglican) where I used to sing in the choir. Was going to sit in the congregation, really I was, but we arrived ten minutes before the service began to get seats and before you could say "Vivaldi's Gloria, O little One Sweet and the Capriol Carol" I was in the choir stalls, wearing a robe and looking only slightly confused. Glad I haven't entirely lost my touch, although perhaps halfway through was a bad time to realise that the combination of Day Nurse and two glasses of red wine may have been a mistake. But fab to be welcomed, hugged and able to sing there again. St Mary's are such an important part of our family and it's great to still be part of theirs.
Christmas morning was celebrated by me driving on the motorway for the first time. Blackwall Tunnel utterly terrifying... even with no-one else there. Conquered my terror by trying to count the number of songs on Magic FM WITHOUT sleigh bells in them. Weren't many.
I shan't bore you all with the minutae of family christmases, but a good time was had by all. AND I got my nasty shallow materialistic Christmas wish - a pink mini iPod. It's the coolest thing ever - and will be really useful for Alternative Worship too (we've been having to make compilation tapes). THANK YOU to my lovely husband - without who nothing is fun.
Happy New Year to all