Merry Christmas!

The nice thing about being grown up is that we don't have to do Christmas at the crack of dawn anymore.

See, when Vicky and I were kids, she'd wake up at 5:30 or 6:00am, drag me out of bed, and insist that we go downstairs right now and see what 'Santa' had left in our stockings. Then she'd want to move on to present-unwrapping right away, but since my dad is very much not a morning person, we never got him downstairs before 8:00am at the earliest, and he (wisely) insisted on eating breakfast before facing mountains of torn wrapping paper.

This, of course, meant that I suffered at least two hours of tired tension on Christmas morning, awake earlier than I wanted to be, but unable to go back to sleep because of Vicky's enthusiasm.

These days, she's much more reasonable. I actually got up before her this morning -- granted, that was mostly because she had a migraine last night, but I think it's still noteworthy. :-)

The church service last night was nice, as always. Mom and Dad were ushering, and Vicky and I got dragooned into helping, since it really takes four ushers to hand out all the candles and take the offering both upstairs and downstairs. Also, Dad says (and I agree with him) that the offertory should be moved to before the homily/sermon, rather than after the homily and right before the candle-lighting, because there just isn't enough time for the ushers to collect the plates, do a head count, count and store the money, close the doors, kill the lights, and light the first candles at the back of the sanctuary.

I forgot to complain to the UUA about the changed words in the hymnal*** last year. Perhaps this year I'll remember.

This afternoon, I visited Pat. I said it was going to be a 45-minute visit, from 2:00pm to 2:45pm -- and I fully expected it to run 15-20 minutes longer, because that's how visits to Pat go -- but I ended up being there until 3:45pm. She was getting ready to go to a friend's house for the afternoon, because she hadn't been able to find help until 9:00pm tonight, and it takes such a long time to get her stuff packed and get both the bags and Pat into a car these days. Her feet are doing very badly, so she has a hospital-style stretcher in her bedroom, in order to get herself mostly upright without having to stand on the floor.

She had a couple of Mormon missionaries there when I arrived, and we sang some Christmas carols together, which was nice. Pat has some sort of arrangement with the local Mormons, such that whoever is doing mission work in this area drops by to visit her every week or two, which I think is very nice and charitable of them. This is actually the third pair I've met at her house over the years, and they've all been very pleasant young men.

Tonight we had roast leg of lamb for dinner, and now I am off to have pumpkin pie for dessert. I don't actually like pumpkin pie half as much as I did when I was younger, but I keep forgetting to tell that to my mom, and it's not as if I dislike it... but Christmas cookies are much better. :-)

***I admit that I do like the altered third verse of "Joy to the World," though. Somebody decided that there was just no way to de-Christianize the third verse as it stands, so they wrote a completely new one. Instead of

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness
And wonders of his love
And wonders of his love
And wonders, and wonders of his love

we get

No more let sin and sorrow reign
Nor thorns infest the ground
Let righteousness its glories show
As far as love is found
As far as love is found
As far, as far as love is found.

I think it's pretty.

Merry Christmas!

The nice thing about being grown up is that we don't have to do Christmas at the crack of dawn anymore.

See, when Vicky and I were kids, she'd wake up at 5:30 or 6:00am, drag me out of bed, and insist that we go downstairs right now and see what 'Santa' had left in our stockings. Then she'd want to move on to present-unwrapping right away, but since my dad is very much not a morning person, we never got him downstairs before 8:00am at the earliest, and he (wisely) insisted on eating breakfast before facing mountains of torn wrapping paper.

This, of course, meant that I suffered at least two hours of tired tension on Christmas morning, awake earlier than I wanted to be, but unable to go back to sleep because of Vicky's enthusiasm.

These days, she's much more reasonable. I actually got up before her this morning -- granted, that was mostly because she had a migraine last night, but I think it's still noteworthy. :-)

The church service last night was nice, as always. Mom and Dad were ushering, and Vicky and I got dragooned into helping, since it really takes four ushers to hand out all the candles and take the offering both upstairs and downstairs. Also, Dad says (and I agree with him) that the offertory should be moved to before the homily/sermon, rather than after the homily and right before the candle-lighting, because there just isn't enough time for the ushers to collect the plates, do a head count, count and store the money, close the doors, kill the lights, and light the first candles at the back of the sanctuary.

I forgot to complain to the UUA about the changed words in the hymnal*** last year. Perhaps this year I'll remember.

This afternoon, I visited Pat. I said it was going to be a 45-minute visit, from 2:00pm to 2:45pm -- and I fully expected it to run 15-20 minutes longer, because that's how visits to Pat go -- but I ended up being there until 3:45pm. She was getting ready to go to a friend's house for the afternoon, because she hadn't been able to find help until 9:00pm tonight, and it takes such a long time to get her stuff packed and get both the bags and Pat into a car these days. Her feet are doing very badly, so she has a hospital-style stretcher in her bedroom, in order to get herself mostly upright without having to stand on the floor.

She had a couple of Mormon missionaries there when I arrived, and we sang some Christmas carols together, which was nice. Pat has some sort of arrangement with the local Mormons, such that whoever is doing mission work in this area drops by to visit her every week or two, which I think is very nice and charitable of them. This is actually the third pair I've met at her house over the years, and they've all been very pleasant young men.

Tonight we had roast leg of lamb for dinner, and now I am off to have pumpkin pie for dessert. I don't actually like pumpkin pie half as much as I did when I was younger, but I keep forgetting to tell that to my mom, and it's not as if I dislike it... but Christmas cookies are much better. :-)

***I admit that I do like the altered third verse of "Joy to the World," though. Somebody decided that there was just no way to de-Christianize the third verse as it stands, so they wrote a completely new one. Instead of

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness
And wonders of his love
And wonders of his love
And wonders, and wonders of his love

we get

No more let sin and sorrow reign
Nor thorns infest the ground
Let righteousness its glories show
As far as love is found
As far as love is found
As far, as far as love is found.

I think it's pretty.