Checking Off the List

Sermons - done.

Bulletins - done.

Gifts - bought and wrapped.

Paperwork with Senior Warden on various things - done.

Grocery shopping - done.

Cooking - begun.

Wegman's (the Temple of Food) was packed today, but I did get to share a Christmas hug with a parishioner who works there. I didn't even try to go into Marshall's to find another set of the plush microfiber sheets - polartec sheets - brilliant! The line of cars circling the parking lot was too intimidating.

I was out at The Mother Ship today, finishing up things with Wonderful Parish Administrator, dealing with making sure the school where our parish meets is plowed out for Thursday evening, having the final fitting on the amazingly beautiful white chasuble and stole that Saint Middle School commissioned the Gifted Seamstress to make for me. (PH: "why do you need a fitting for something that's essentially a poncho?" Low-church heathen, he is. I'm short, dammit. Regular length chasubles swim on me. She needed to get the right hem length and arm length.)

Please say a prayer for two dear persons who are struggling with difficult and life-threatening diagnoses. The coming months will be hard for each of them, and for those who love them.

A friend told me about Blue Christmas services, for those who are facing Christmas after a death of someone they love, or in the midst of depression or medical travail, or some other deep sadness...I wish I had heard of this earlier. I may do that next year. They are tied to the Longest Night of the Year, and provide a liturgy to provide comfort in the midst of darkness, when it seems hard to see the light that is to come. A good bit of pastoral theology, I think.

StrongOpinions had her last exam up at Big Apple Ivy this afternoon - it was the one she most feared, and she came away from it feeling like she did reasonably well. She will head up to her eldest stepbrother's for Christmas Eve, and then will be down with us for a few days starting on Christmas Day. We will do all the silly things that are part of our celebration of Christmas, like making cookies out of cornflakes and marshmallows and copious amounts of green food coloring, shaped like wreaths, and maybe even a buche de noel, even though I'm trying to avoid eating that kind of stuff, and a pilgrimage to the cheese boutique - bliss!

Sunday will be Lessons and Carols with Holy Eucharist, and the following Sunday will be the postponed Children's Pageant.

That's the news that's fit to print around here. Are you ready for the coming of the Light of the World?