I hope you have a lovely time no matter what you ended up doing this holiday. My Christmas did not get off to a great start but ended so pleasantly, I have to smile thinking of it.
As you may have noticed, I wasn't feeling the May-West on Christmas Eve, but after a couple of slices of Pizza, a nap and an hour of belting out carols at the midnight service, my heart was singing with he Christmas spirit.
True to form, the church was packed with perhaps 200-300 people, about 30 of which were Christians and had any clue as to what was going or or knew the songs. This incidentally, included the organist. I know now that it is possible to sing Angels From the Realms of Glory to the tune of Angels we have Heard on High. The rest of the people were there for the show, perhaps expecting to hear full-on choirs, or see kids act out the nativity story like they do in the movies. I saw two people actually taking notes and must have been in some sort of anthropology or religious studies course. As I was leaving the church, I heard one of my few fellow Christians loudly complain "They are all tourists! Come, watch the Christians! This isn't a tourist exhibit!" I can see his point. At times it was a little annoying, but in the name of promoting religious tolerance, I would rather have it this way than, well- you know- persecutions, crusades, giant walls, etc. Or a further breeding of the young stupid, bigoted, racist jerks, that can be found here who think that because I am a Christian and western, I must be a slut.
But I got to sing loudly and happily and I was in a great mood and strutting it home humming Angels we Have Heard on High (with the wrong words) and carrying my bible in hand since I had given one of the readings. At that point, a SUV buzzed by me and a guy yelled out his window "EAZY PUSSAAAH!" at me. My first thought was to throw my bible at him- literally, but instead, yanked off my mitten and gave him the finger. "Well there goes the Christmas spirit" I thought. As down as I felt at that moment, I should have know that the Christmas spirit is pretty resilient and it would turn out OK.
I woke up in the morning and started moving and didn't stop until midnight. I had to go pick up the big bird from the butchers (which was five pounds bigger than I ordered), go to the grocery store, bake a cake, make butter tarts, stuff the turkey with stuffing and then stuff the over-sized beast into the oven, peel the potatoes, clean the house, decorate the house, make a salad, move furniture around, set the table, mull some apple juice, make gravy....and then had a wonderful evening with five friends. We laughed and laughed. I don't think I have ever laughed so much at Christmas. Everyone had to try on Mom's chicken hat and the Jingle-Bells singing Chicken was a big hit. There are some great pictures of the shenanigans but I figured I will keep them for blackmail. Somehow Ehud had not heard the Cow fetus story and when he found out he had tears rolling down his face and a few times I was afraid he was going to fall off the chair. Itai insisted on making and bringing eggnog, which no one had had before, despite the fact that I kept telling him egg nog was gross. But it wasn't so bad, especially since it was laced with copious amounts of 8 dollar brandy. David wrote and presided over the now famous and annual Christmas general knowledge quiz and Adam and Orpha brought a giant pile of mini gingerbread men whom after a quick drowning in coffee have provided most of my sustenance on Boxing Day.
To say the least, it was an unexpectedly wonderful Christmas.
Everyone helped out with the dishes and rearranging my furniture back before they left, so after they left and today I really only had a few pots and pans to clean, the floor to mop and the carcass to strip and turn into broth.
I must tell you, I did not do these things until about 4 pm today when I finally crawled out of bed and had a shower. Must have been the egg nog with the 8 dollar brandy.
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