Third Day of Christmas!
What a wonderful Christmas this is.....I hope all of you dear friends are having a likewise blessed and, indeed, jolly time!

I have finally learned after almost half a century of life, not to judge everything by my ‘feelings,’ (e.g. - Christmas is Christmas whether or not I feel particularly jolly), so I am doubly blessed to actually feel the way I think I should. Giddy as a school girl, perhaps?

For the first time in many years, Mass on Christmas Eve was more joyous than penitential. I refused to let the nattering crowds get me down. Because I was the lector, I was guaranteed a seat, but we arrived an hour early so my entourage could find a please to sit, too. This year, they were actually able to sit with me. I broke my usual rule about not toting entertainment items to church (the boys are 8 and 13, for Heaven’s sake) and brought notebooks and pens so the guys could sketch until Mass started and not use up all their ‘sitting still energy.’

Going to church yesterday morning was superb, also.
The church was decorated fabulously, but it was also divinely quiet. The yada-yada-yada of the Christmas crowd is absent on the a.m. of the 26th. The best of all worlds...........