"Christmas comes into the year just like God comes into our lives: quietly, in the middle of the dark and cold, preparing the secret seeds of life and love even in the depths of the frozen ground. Be silent, be still; His love is always working."
-Steve Gershom
I had meant to quote the song that Carrie gave me today: in lieu of a traditional Advent calendar, with little presents, we filled up little candy-stripe-colored paper bags, clothespinned along a string strung across the doorway-thing into the kitchen, with Christmas-themed quotations. Many were serious and Christ-centric; some were song or hymn lyrics; some were just there to be funny. I got behind a few times on my half of the quotations, but it was good to've done it. Anyway, like I said, today's was a song, and I wanted to quote it here, but then I forgot to bring it with me, and now I'm back in Syracuse.
My brother has discovered the song "Dominick the Donkey," which I already knew thanks to Kristin; he found a YouTube clip of it tonight and sang along to it and danced around, waving a fist and elbow to keep time, looking as he did so basically like the cast of Whose Line used to when they played "Irish Drinking Song."
He got me, for Christmas (by longstanding tradition, he and I exchange our gifts to each other on Christmas Eve, opening the ones from our parents on Christmas Day), a card game called We Didn't Playtest This at All, which we proceeded to try out with our parents, deciding (since the games tend to be short) to play until someone had won five times - it turned out to be my dad who did so, despite games with changing rules or elements of randomness not really being his favorite. Also, I had an allergic reaction to something, though we're not sure what, which manifested itself in bright red knuckles and fingers. Tentatively we're blaming it on the Starburst that my brother had taped all over the card deck as the first layer of "wrapping paper," since, who knows, maybe my Skittles allergy, which has already spread to fruit-flavored Mentos, has gone further still. (Then again, I don't think I'd been eating any vividly-dyed candy back last week, when I got probably the worse case of hives of my life. So if "Why have I been having minor allergic reactions lately?" is the kind of thing you like to make guesses about and then check back later to see if you're right, you'd better jump on it before I figure out what it really is. And/or you could certainly pray for my apparently-hypervigilant immune system.)
But, as I sort of implied above, most of my day wasn't spent here in Syracuse, but in Binghamton, like last year. And, like last year, I went to see the pageant again at church, which this year descended into a bit of chaos when one of the young sheep started wandering around the altar at the point when everyone was supposed to be admiring the baby Jesus, and a young angel kept stage-whispering to try to get him to come back. Still (or, really, in addition to that), it was a good pageant, as pretty much always.
After the pageant came communion, and I looked around our lovely church, all decorated, and surrounded by so many people who bring joy into my life, and even though I was headed up to Syracuse soon after, and even though I love my family, I was glad I'd chosen to also be there, in that moment, with my friends.
I'm grateful for this year's new friends, too - Pisey, Heather (and Katie, soon enough, likely enough), Rui, Meredith, Kyle, Jenny, Wilkie, Adam and Heather, Tracy, Anne B., other church people whom I've known for a while but can probably call friends now (Chris O., Mark and Anna), Sophia, Amy, Rachael, Dan, and anyone else I'm forgetting. Merry Christmas or happy holidays, as applicable, to my students, especially K. and T., whom I wish I could keep tabs on, but probably won't be able to.
A merry Christmas to Manfred, to the other sponsor kids of my past (and one of Ananda's who, if I ever make a living wage again, may still be half-mine in the present), and to all those away from home for military service - less of them though there are this year, happily - or any other reason.
Here's to 2011, in all its sometimes-messy glory, and to 2012, which's shaping up to be the most impressive not-actually-apocalyptic-after-all year since Y2K. Peace to you all.