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Home for Christmas
I caught the bus down from Boston to Connecticut, and am currently sitting on the loveseat in my mother's living room. Her cats are ignoring me so far. This may or may not change as I am determined to be an acceptable heat source, even if I do smell like another cat.
We won't be going to Christmas Eve services. Her house isn't even decorated. We're doing the decorations in place of the Christmas Eve services, and it's not just because Maman is more Wiccan than Christian.
Back when I was small, Christmas Eve meant not just one but two church services. The first one was somewhere around six PM, for families with small children or people who didn't want to stay up. It was bright and cheerful and really I don't remember much about these services: they were just sort of happy and fluffy and forgettable. We would go home afterwards, and maybe there would be napping, or maybe Maman would be trying to surreptitiously wrap presents while Father kept me and![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lurkerkate occupied, or maybe Father would read aloud Charles Dickens's A CHRISTMAS CAROL while the rest of us sewed or worked on a jigsaw puzzle or just sat and listened. (My father is kind of a jerk in many many ways, but he kicks ass at reading aloud. I still read that book and hear his voice.)
And then we would go off to the late service, at 11. That was the candlelight service, the service where we sang hymns like 'We Three Kings' (including the haunting 'myrrh' verse) and 'O Come O Come Emmanuel' and at the very end, the ushers came forward with their candles, and the only light left was the slowly spreading gleam of our candles, and 'Silent Night.' And then we went out into the cold darkness, and I could look up into the chilly starlit sky, and know that midnight had come, and here and now in the cold and dark and stillness, it was Christmas.
Nobody has services that late any more, seems like. Old South announced that it was having family Christmas Eve at 4, and festival candlelight service at 8. The church here in Maman's town (which has gone crazy conservative politically) has a service at 10, which is the latest time I've seen.
I'm not the girl I was then. I don't believe things as clearly or blindly as I used to, once. But there's still a part of me that misses it.
Right. Back to writing. I've promised myself to try to post a story a day from Christmas to New Year's, and I'm still at least two stories short.
We won't be going to Christmas Eve services. Her house isn't even decorated. We're doing the decorations in place of the Christmas Eve services, and it's not just because Maman is more Wiccan than Christian.
Back when I was small, Christmas Eve meant not just one but two church services. The first one was somewhere around six PM, for families with small children or people who didn't want to stay up. It was bright and cheerful and really I don't remember much about these services: they were just sort of happy and fluffy and forgettable. We would go home afterwards, and maybe there would be napping, or maybe Maman would be trying to surreptitiously wrap presents while Father kept me and
lurkerkate occupied, or maybe Father would read aloud Charles Dickens's A CHRISTMAS CAROL while the rest of us sewed or worked on a jigsaw puzzle or just sat and listened. (My father is kind of a jerk in many many ways, but he kicks ass at reading aloud. I still read that book and hear his voice.)And then we would go off to the late service, at 11. That was the candlelight service, the service where we sang hymns like 'We Three Kings' (including the haunting 'myrrh' verse) and 'O Come O Come Emmanuel' and at the very end, the ushers came forward with their candles, and the only light left was the slowly spreading gleam of our candles, and 'Silent Night.' And then we went out into the cold darkness, and I could look up into the chilly starlit sky, and know that midnight had come, and here and now in the cold and dark and stillness, it was Christmas.
Nobody has services that late any more, seems like. Old South announced that it was having family Christmas Eve at 4, and festival candlelight service at 8. The church here in Maman's town (which has gone crazy conservative politically) has a service at 10, which is the latest time I've seen.
I'm not the girl I was then. I don't believe things as clearly or blindly as I used to, once. But there's still a part of me that misses it.
Right. Back to writing. I've promised myself to try to post a story a day from Christmas to New Year's, and I'm still at least two stories short.
no subject
Too bad you're not closer, I'd say you should come on down. =)
no subject
If I were closer, I would so come. :-D If nothing else, from your descriptions of your church and minister, they sound like they're interesting regardless of what hours they hold their Christmas Eve service at.