Monday, December 19, 2011

Christmas arrives...


Christmas for me arrives when I have finished plating 140 dozen cookies and figured out who is going to usher and made sure the coffee is made and all the extra chairs are in place for overflow seating.


Yes. 

You guessed it.
It's the annual church Christmas Concert and I'm the hospitality & cookies lady.


Isn't this the essence of the best kind of Christmas celebration?


Oh, I love these people!

It's Linda and Jackie, Dal and Barb and all the others in the choir, the orchestra,
the drama, the children's choir...


It's the old ones tottering in to watch, the little ones in their robes made of old bedsheets...


Is there anything sweeter than the angels and the children who play Mary and Joseph and the shepherds?


The shepherd's crooks lean against the wall while the children are in the bathroom before they go on stage.


And then singing in Swedish, a tradition we love to repeat year after year after year. 
I wouldn't miss it for anything. Mr. Wonderful says my face glows... 

it's so wonderful to enjoy my Scandinavian heritage with the very young and the very old and everyone in between.


And afterward, the cookies we've worked so hard on disappear at an impossible speed.


This is Christmas for me. 
Not store bought. This is the real deal and I wouldn't change it for anything.


My Christmas wish for you is joy and satisfaction in the simple pleasures and deep truths.

Merry Christmas, friends.
Merry Christmas!