Categories: uncategorized
Date: 10 December 2004 22:40:23
No advent candles tonight. I headed out bush tonight for the local churches version of carols by candlelight. The air was warm, the breeze was cool, the grass was green. The kids had glow sticks, and ran around the edge of the football oval throwing them up into the air. That is, until they were asked to stop by St John's Ambulance, after they'd seen enough injuries for the night. One of the injuries was from my party. I'm so proud. As the sun went down around 9pm, all the kids returned to their family's picnic blanket to light their candles. The whole oval was then covered in a warm, flickering glow. My picnic blanket now had little round splashes of white wax on it. Now I feel like I own A Proper Picnic Blanket. Just like the picnic blanket we had as kids.
The local primary school kids sang the reindeer rap complete with beat boxing, a local minister sang opera. We sang Silent Night, Away in a manger, and ten others including Merry, Merry Christmas, complete with references to stockmen riding by, and the bright weather of Christmas morning. The volunteer fire brigade, and emergency service were there, chatting away in their bright yellow overalls with blue T-shirts and red braces. Santa arrived on the fire truck, called in on the radio.
The night finished fire works. My favourite were the rockets that left a wide trail of sparkles behind them from the ground to up in the sky, no bang, just white light. I felt all happy, and warm, and sparkly, and thought of God, as I do whenever I feel all happy and warm and sparkly. If you can't have fire works to celebrate the birth of Jesus, king of all time and space, when can you?