Lift Up Your Hearts!

This post was going to include Christmas Day, but it turned out to be pretty long, so I've divided it into two parts.

Last Sunday we enjoyed the Festival of Nine Christmas Lessons and Carols at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, featuring the Boy Choir and Girls Choir.  I'm tired of hearing that today's kids only want to sing pop songs!  If that's all they hear, of course that's what they'll want to sing.  But these boys and girls sing excellent music from several centuries, and with beautiful, pure voices.  The singers included a couple of friends of ours:  one boy man, now a college graduate (alumni are invited to sing with the choirs), whom we knew as a very young Suzuki violinist, and a second-generation Girl's Choir singer whose mother we knew when she was in high school.  Perhaps my favorite part of the service, however, was the instructions, printed in the bulletin, to the congregation.  No slackers allowed:  "Please stand and sing the entire hymn in harmony."  (Emphasis mine.)  That and seeing several long-time friends (I've reached the age when "old friends" is not the preferred term) at the excellent reception afterwards.

Friday night we took a break and returned to the Morse Museum for our third time in a month: they showcase music as well as art during this season.  We didn't stay long, however, and spent most of the time talking to some friends we unexpectedly met.  We would like to have returned Saturday, when the Raintree Chamber Players were to be featured, but that was Christmas Eve, and we had a few other plans....

On the 24th, Porter decided to join the throngs of procrastinating shoppers, and found the crowds suprisingly sparse.  Given the state of the stores and highways leading up to the day, however, I conclude it has little to do with the economy.  Perhaps beginning the Christmas shopping season in early October was sufficient inspiration for most people to be fully prepared (or at least out of money) with no need for a last-minute rush.

Not me, though.  My shopping was done, but I had plenty of other last-minute things to do.  While Porter was out I finished the wrapping, and frosted our Christmas Cutout cookies.  I had planned to be lazy this year and not bother with the frosting, but I'd used 100% white whole wheat flour (see the discussion in the comments here) and it made the already-not-very-sweet dough into something not quite right for Christmas.  So I whipped up our traditional egg white and confectioner's sugar frosting with a healthy glug of Penzeys double-strength vanilla and it did the trick perfectly with the cookies, which, incidentally, I had spiced this year with last year's gift of Speckulatius-gewürz.  I was still lazy, frosting them in single colors with a knife rather than painting them artistically with tiny brushes, but I'm sure they didn't taste the worst for that.

After my early, experimental batch of Variations on a Dream cookies, I made two more, plus two of Christmas Cutouts, two batches of Almond Butter Crunch, and one each of Dark Chocolate Cherry and Dark Chocolate Orange fudge.  Sounds a bit over-indulgent for two people, doesn't it?  Fortunately, Christmas goodies serve well as gifts for choir members, neighbors, and assorted other folks.  But yes, we did save some for ourselves....

All too soon it was time to leave for church, and our two Christmas Eve services.  (Actually, there are three, but the choir was not needed at the earliest one.)  We had a brief rehearsal, and began the first service at 7:00.  I thought the evening might be a marathon, but hadn't realized it would be a sprint as well.  Episcopalians make up for not singing Christmas carols during Advent by singing them all on Christmas Eve!  With thirteen hymns and four anthems, along with the rest of the service, I was exhausted and  hoarse when the service ended an hour and a half later.  The choir has a tradition of eating together between the early and the late services, but it has grown to include the entire performing arts ministry and their families—some sixty people—which was more than this introvert could face between two exhausting services.  Fortunately, a fellow choir member felt the same way, and he took us to his home, where his wife had waiting a meal of bread and soothing hot soup.  Restored, we were back at church by 10:30 for the final service.  It was just as crazy, but this time I was prepared and knew when I could fit in essential sips of water.

My favorite part of the evening?  Singing the Hallelujah Chorus.  TWICE.

My second-favorite part?  Not burning the church down.

In the later part of each service, as the congregation returned from receiving Communion, each person was given a candle.  The choir sang one verse of Stille Nacht, then everyone sang Silent Night as the choir dispersed into the congregation to light the candles.  Of course, for the proper candlelight effect, the lights must be turned down.  As I made my way along the darkened, narrow aisle to my assigned rows, I tripped over what I later determined to be someone's folded-up walker leaning against the wall.  I recovered, and offered the lady on the end of the aisle my candle, from which to light her own.  That was when I realized she didn't have a candle.  The lady whose lap I had nearly fallen into didn't have a candle because she had a nasal cannula.  Attached to an oxygen bottle.  I gingerly reached w-a-a-a-y over her to light the candle of the person sitting beside her.

We made it home by about 12:30 Christmas morning.  I broke with tradition and did not listen to Mannheim Steamroller while finishing up Christmas preparations, but went to bed at the same time as everyone else.  With "everyone else" being no one but Porter, all but filling the stockings and placing the remaining gifts under the tree could wait for morning.  Later morning, that is.