Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Celebrating

This Christmas was one that will be memorable and luckily not because anything chaotic when on. I received some great gifts, spend time with some wonderful people but most importantly (at least what makes it the most memorable for me) is that it was my first Christmas as a pastor.

Christmas Eve I woke up early unable to sleep any longer. I was like a little kid on Christmas morning. After breakfast I went over to the church and did some random stuff to prepare for worship while Bob sanded the parking lot and did a mail run. After a few hours, we had a Middeke traditional Christmas Eve dinner of a Hickory Farms gift box (yes this really is a tradition in my family). As the day went on I went back to church to prepare, the choir came to practice, the luminaries went outside and the church filled with worshipers. I did have one stress-filled moment around 4:30 when the Sunday school kids were there to practice, the choir wasn't done practicing yet and I had other things to do before 5 when worship began but I bowed out hopefully I didn't insult anyone.






Worship went really well. The choir sang beautifully, us bell players pulled it off, the kids lead Away in the Manger wonderfully and hopefully my sermon was meaningful to those who heard it. And of course candlelight Silent Night was the highlight of the worship service for me.

After worship, Bob and I went back to our home and he fixed us dinner and we opened our gifts to each other and a few others we received. I have to share what Bob commissioned his brother to draw for me. He basically did a collage of pictures from my ordination weekend. (We went to the Peabody Museum in New Haven that weekend hence the triceratops.)

At 10:45 as we are watching Miracle on 34th St we hear a knock on our door and who does it happen to be? The Hottensteins from My First Wedding fame. They thought there was an 11pm service but wanted to stop by and say hello. It is always so nice to see them, especially because they live in New Jersey and are therefore not in CT that often.

On Christmas morning we slept in, took Daisy for a walk and then went to the Grunsell's for Christmas dinner. I love holidays because they are the only days it is considered normal to eat at 3 in the afternoon. Ellen as always put on a fantastic spread of food and the company was wonderful.

We then came home so that we could open the presents from my family while we talked to them on speaker phone. We would have done it via webcam but we do not have a working webcam and we didn't think about that until we were on the phone with them. My family opens presents one at a time and we give gifts to everyone so it takes quiet awhile, but even via speaker phone we had a great time laughing together and both admiring the gifts we received and making fun of them as well.

It was a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all had a wonderful time in worship, with family and friends as you celebrate the birth of our Lord.

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