‘Twas The Night Before … "


Here it is 9:30 PM on Christmas Eve and Penny and Christy have gone to their rooms after a scrumptious evening dinner. I asked them if they were having any visions of sugarplums, but they didn’t even know what a sugarplum was.


We went to church twice today – once for Sunday, once for Christmas. We like to go to the children’s Mass and see the kids act out the manger scene. This year they did a good job. As is typical for Christmas, this mass was packed. There were lots of extended families and a mess of babies. Needless to say the church was not quiet. For the first half of mass – before the kids did their play – a shepherd or wise man would run down the isle to make a bathroom call. This year the microphones worked so the kids could be heard. My favorite part was when the littlest kid came out, stood on a chair and held up a big paper star – the guiding light for the kings. The star was half his size and he held it out straight and high for the whole time. They gave one of the older girls a solo and she forgot the words. The rest of the group picked up the verse nicely for her, but it was sad to see her embarrassment.


There was no accompanist at the mass so the choir carried all the singing. It actually set a nice soft mood for the mass with just the voices. After the play when Father was preparing the gifts the babies began to be restless. At one point in particular when he was consecrating the hosts a wave of angry baby noises rose through the church. It reminded me of the way dogs bark in a neighborhood. One starts and sets off all the others.


Penny seems to have a knack for attracting big people that sit in front of her at sporting events, movies and tonight at church. We had a very large young man sit right in front of her. Since this is a military parish I figured he might be a soldier of sorts. I turned to Penny and said, “How do you do that?” meaning attract big people. She looked at the guy and said, “Genetics and hard work”. Obviously she didn’t understand my question and told me how big people are made.


It was nice to see all the families smiling and talking at church. It reminded me of earlier Christmases in CT when we would have all the relatives over. There was always a huge tray of “cold cuts” and crusty bread. My Dad always got a tray of Italian cookies. I liked the almond cookies. It was at one of those Christmas gatherings that I got drunk. I couldn’t of been more than 4 or 5 years old, but for some reason I wanted to taste my Mom’s highball. I don’t remember if I was given the drink or snuck it. I think she let me have the last of one of hers, figuring the ice had watered things down. Whatever the circumstances, my only memory of how it felt was walking through our kitchen flopping my head side-to-side marching along singing some song. It’s a wonder I’m not an alcoholic!


This is not a white Christmas, but it is a wet one. We are supposed to get about ½ inch of rain. It’s nice to know we are safe and dry and have nowhere we need to be. Tomorrow morning we will wake, have Christy put the baby Jesus in the manger and open presents.
Now it is time to go to bed and have those sugarplum visions dance in my head.
Merry Christmas!