Peace Light...now out

We could not decide how best to handle the Peace light.  Blowing it out seemed, well, rude.  So, we allowed fate or the candle maker to decide. 

Our light remained lit all through Christmas Eve, Christmas day and the Blizzard of 2012.  It was a joy to have the light during the bad weather. 

Sometime in the wee hours of this morning our candle simply ran out of wax... and the light was snuffed out.  Now the light is gone, but peace remains with us.

And peace will certainly go before us into 2013!  So the candle may be out of wax, but we're not out of peace.

Christmas is HERE!

This photo says it all!

 

Santa arrived in time! And at 6:30am our daughter got us up to see what he had brought!

 

Next two hours were a shredding of paper and excited squeals!

 

Love it!

 

She got to tired and tuckered out from opening that we paused mid-unwrapping

for a snack (breakfast) break!  :)

 

Hope your holiday and holy day were as special as ours!

 

Merry Christmas!



Christmas Eve after 11pm

It is Christmas!  It is Christmas!!!!

We celebrated with 1061 folks tonight the birth of our Lord and Savior!  Woo hoo!

How lovely was the cello at 11pm!  Wow- and some of the folks who came out tonight I have not seen in a long time.  Was wonderful to see them and their Christmas smiles.

Now, I must clean up and pack up to drive home.

Marry Christmas, everyone!  And God bless us, everyone!

Christmas Eve after 9pm

Now, we're in the last stretch... one more time!

Lovely to see out college students in worship this evening.  So many folks dressed in red sweaters and boys in ties and young gals in fancy dresses!  Too fun.

Our Youth did our religious graffiti on the luminary bags this year and they did a wonderful job!  Love it!

Super music again!

Feel so blessed I could burst.  But ready to get another Diet Coke and maybe a cookie or too!

Christmas Eve after 7pm

Okay, so this pastor puddled up during her reading of the gospel message!  Favorite moments and godly moments:

• watching my daughter snuggled up to her daddy (my husband) 
• listening to the pre-worship show my an eager 3rd grade acolyte
• cheery "Merry Christmas!" from a little kid during worship
• gorgeous music!
• amazing O Holy Night solo by Katie that made me weep!
• sharing Holy Communion with our people
• knowing that the light for all of our candles this year came to us from Bethlehem!
• sharing Holy Communion with our nursery people
• watching the sanctuary lit up with candles!  WOW!

Now that I have vacuumed... off to worship again!

Christmas Eve after 5pm

WOW-it was noisy and wonderful!  The Holy family sat in the front row the entire time and even participated in the Message (aka the Children's Sermon)!  And yes, Baby Jesus is a girl this year!  Woo hoo!  Girls rock!

Packed service with lots of smiles and families!  Thoroughly was blessed by the reading of the Isaiah passage in which the family read antiphonally the names for GOD!  Awesome!

Wonderful!  Simply wonderful!

Now for some Chinese food and Diet Coke!

Pre-Christmas Eve Services 2012

Here we go! In less than 21 minutes we begin our l-o-n-g night of music, Communion, carols, messages, and Light as we celebrate the birth of the Christ child!

As Spongebob would say, "I am ready!"

My thank you notes have already been started... the food is to be delivered for the staff meal in between services and the crowd in the sanctuary is growing!  Woo hoo!

Hopefully, all is well on the home front with my little family.

See you later to blog all about it!

Merry Christmas-ing!