Christmas Festivities 2011

As I was driving home from the Christmas Eve service around midnight, I was overwhelmed by the sacredness on the outside.

It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the service in the church building.  Quite the contrary.  It was nice to see friends, to participate in the readings, to sing the hymns I grew up with during the Christmas seasons of my childhood - but it was the stillness.  It was the dark sky and the non-existent traffic and the flicker of the streetlights that spoke to me of The Divine in the most real way this Christmas Night.

It is sometimes nice to be alone.

Sacred solitude.  The feeling of YHWH in the stillness.  My thoughts turn to the Dawn of Creation.  Everything is beautiful.

Christmas Day was brought early by Jonah, who is our excited, excitable, sensitive, wonder.  He dragged us all out of bed with some protest, and he and Michael set up the train to run around the bottom of the Christmas tree.

We let Maeryn sleep in significantly longer than the rest of us.

We opened gifts.

We played out the story of the First Christmas, each of us acting out several parts while Michael read the story (he jumped in at one point as a part of the Heavenly Armies).  I played Mary, a shepherd, and the donkey.  Maeryn played Mary, a shepherd, and Gabriel.  Jonah played the angel who spoke to the shepherds and Joseph.  Maeryn's stuffed blue bunny played the Holy Child.

Michael and I baked vegan cinnamon rolls.  They were heavenly.  We all feasted.  We ordered Chinese food for dinner.  We watched The Secret of Kells.  We looked up the actual Book of Kells.  We lounged around the house.

The kids played in the bathtub.

Michael played music.

I wrote poetry.

LOVE.