Happy Christmas to all...

In this week between Christmas and New Year's, let's take a moment to pause and contemplate the wonders of the season. We have had fun so far. Where to begin? I suppose with Christmas Eve day as that is when our general Christmas festivities start. As I have mentioned before, it has become tradition to be part of the Children's Christmas Eve mass and pagent and Emma was to be a shepard. After attending all rehearsals and practicing her song (Away in a Manger) to excess (she is in that I-sing-so-well-that-everyone-surely-wants-to-hear phase) at home, she was ready for the show. We barely arrived at the church on time on Christmas Eve afternoon due to my tendancy to take on too many tasks at the last minute, but arrived more or less in one piece and were not the last ones to arrive--thank you very much! After depositing Emma downstairs to dress, I joined the other parents in the rush upstairs to secure prime locations for the service.

Here is what it looked like downstairs:
Note the girl in the very center of the picture dressed as the angel Gabriel. She has been eyeing this part for years and said that she did not want to be Mary because the costume was ugly--she was much more interested in the beautiful angel costume. She took her part very seriously.







Emma was ready to go:

Unfortunately, she did not get the stick she was desiring. I think they didn't have enough sticks for all the kids or maybe Emma just forgot hers when it was time to come upstairs--both are possibilities.









After the children came in during the gospel reading, the priest gave his homily and asked the kids various questions:

Though most of the kids started out VERY focused on their task, they were not warned that there would be a quiz and most of them gradually zoned out, moving closer to horizontal as the homily went on. And some of them answered questions but with answers that had nothing to do with the question. A few of the older kids redeemed them all with correct answers. All in all, the kids did a great job! It is definately a great way to usher in Christmas.




As for Emma next year, although the role of the angel Gabriel is the flashier role, I think she will want to be Mary as that is more likely to snag her the Oscar.

After mass, we headed to the Cincotta's house--long time family friends who we have been spending Christmas Eve with for maybe 20 years. We had great Italian food and the matriarchs took their grandchildren on a walk to find Santa. Alas, no Santa but there were pretty houses and they had a great time.

The Cincottas also gave me my best Christmas present--a stomach virus...