Christmas Eve Glow

Christmas Eve this year was dreamy, beautiful, and right. 

We had been to Niagara Falls the day before to eat a meal with my paternal Grandma, the kids' Great-Grandma Dorothy. All went smoothly and the time was precious, but it was also tiring. We rested on Monday morning at Dad's snow-covered little house. Miles and I made cookies and Adele took her naps in peace. Jon made one last run for stocking stuffers and I got the kids ready for the evening.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, we all bundled into the car and drove to Leah and Matthew's new house in the city. They live just one block from their new start-up church, the South Wedge Mission, which shares a building with Peace Lutheran. That evening, the two congregations were having a joint service.

Before going to church, however, we began the evening with a funny, disorganized and short Christmas pageant of our own. Miles had to miss our Blacksburg's church's pageant, and he had a great desire to be a donkey, so Leah and I cobbled together a little production for the assembled cousins and grandparents. 

I got a bit carried away taking pictures of Adele, who played Gabriel:

Miles' donkey hood needed a button in front. He didn't seem to mind, though.

He particularly loved his tail

Miles' enthusiasm for his role as Donkey went as far as singing the "I, said the Donkey" verse of The Friendly Beasts, but not far enough to give Mary the required ride to Bethlehem town. Abby's Daddy took some time off of sermon prep to step in and help create the pageant.

Tai-tai's Christmas skunk outfit didn't seem to last long. Perhaps he is a traditionalist? Art critic?

After the pageant, we had a rowdy carol and de-costumed the tinies. We enjoyed a lovely dinner and a lot of partially and un-supervised play for the tinies (Miles and Abby kind of disappeared into Abby's room for a long time and came out with...well... different clothing on), they got their Act Two costumes on for the Christmas Eve service. 

Abby was rocking the sweetest outfit and a new dress coat (not pictured)

Adele was wearing a dress that Abby wore three years ago	.	I hadn't realized this when I packed it.

Miles stuck with a traditional Christmas sweater.

The pictures below are not of the Christmas Eve service but of the evening service from Sunday, December 23rd. You can get a glimpse here of how they use their space for South Wedge Mission services and of the participatory nature of the service. 

Prayer Table. Miles draws his prayers.

We write our own prayers of the people during a quiet reflection time in the middle of the service. At a different station, attendees could write captions for an icon depicting the day's gospel reading, and at another could write in a gratitude book. It was a very soul soothing time for us! 

I look forward to walking back into this church someday.

After church, we got home quite late, as is traditional, I believe. Miles had already helped me to write his letter to Santa. This year, he not only wrote his own name, but Santa's. He's also recently been writing "Adele" and "cat." Obviously a genius. :-)

What I love about having a 3 year old at Christmas, is that this is all he wanted and all he really expected to get: a flashlight of his very own, and a big etch-a-sketch. We got him rather more than that, but it all went beyond his expectations. How beautiful and fleeting a time this is!

Bedtime. He fell asleep determined to be asleep when Santa arrived, because he really still finds Santa unsettling. Adele fell asleep as she always does. Unsuspecting.