"Old Girl" the cat enjoys enjoys her 11th Christmas with us, albeit lookin a little cranky in her holiday best!
I hope you all spent a wonderful Christmas with the ones you love. Or
tolerate. Or had no choice in having to be around today. :) Ours
was nice, and relatively quiet: just my daughter and me, and a friend
she invited over who has no family here. We did get to call and
wish Merry Christmas to all our family who are so scattered about the
country these days. We cooked a small dinner together, and
happily caught a late showing of "King Kong" to top off what was all in all a darn fine
day!
It's
rained for two days here at the beach, but not a bad trade off with
having nearly 60 degrees both days. Now that's my idea of
December! However, acknowledging I may have just tempted the
weather gods with the preceding statement, I'm prepared that it could
get cold and snow a foot at any moment, posthaste...
...especially after my embarrassingly inappropriate giggling episodes in
the House of the Lord on three occasions during Christmas Eve services.
Three times, I tell you!
Mature adult as I (mostly) am, I don't know what came over me to succumb
to such sophomoric urges... perhaps it was the levity of the day and
being excited for Christmas in mere hours, I'm not sure. But I
love church and hearing the Christmas Message from the pulpit.
Fortunately, my giggles didn't happen until near the end of an
absolutely beautiful candle light Christmas Eve service, when it was
time for the offering plate to be passed around. Daughter,
5ft9Brunette, leaned in and asked, in all innocense and sincerity, if I
remembered to bring money for "the tip." God love my
teenage girl... it would appear that I take her out to dinner more
often than I take her to church. So this set the stage for me
giggling, as it dawned on me she was referring to the
tithe. Luckily, we were saved by breaking into the closing song
of the evening, "Silent Night" and I managed to get my church
face back on, and became semi-composed and serious again.
Until....
Daughter totally annihilated the upper octaves with her heart-felt,
earnest singing of "....sleep in heavenly peace..." I tried
so hard to stifle my giggles, but I couldn't help it. Then it
spread to my daughter and she started laughing.... we could barely
contain ourselves. When I stopped laughing, she started up, and
vice versa. It had taken on a life of its own!
Then, "la piece de la resistance" happened when the
dude in the row in front of me was just overcome by the Spirit, and
enthusiastically hoisted his glowing white candle high in the air, and started waiving
it overhead during the last chorus. It looked to me like a "Free
Bird" encore at a Skynyrd concert and I started giggling again...so did
5ft9.... Oh Lord, it's time for us to go... we're a mess!!
