After finishing up our last Advent litany on Christmas Eve, we opened some presents and went off to church for mass. Christmas Eve is one of my least favorite services when we’re up here in Spokane. Because it’s usually the biggest, it’s the least liturgical service of the year. Growing up, midnight mass was the most magical time of the year. It seems like the first snow of the year started while I was in midnight mass. Well, add the fact that all the snow had melted this year to the non-liturgiality, it was just okay. I had to remind myself that snow and liturgy do not the season make.

On Christmas morning, after chewing down lefsa, bacon, and oranges, I headed to church to get in my alb. I am the chief assisting minister at Salem every year, and I was penned in before I was told this year. I had just learned my canting parts the evening before, so I think the first line of the hymn of praise was messed up. I made it through though. Assisting in the liturgy, especially the canting, is one of my favorite things, but I like to actually know the music before I go in. We did the presents thing when we got to Mommy and Daddy’s, and ate, and then we played Cranium with Forrest’s new Turbo Edition Cranium. It was sweet.

I stayed up late, organizing four inches worth of journal articles and study guides to read this semester: Milbank, Tracy, Wright, Grenz, Schmemann. I have my hands full this year.

Well, I woke up this afternoon (yes, afternoon), exhausted from another Christmas Day. My tonsils were swollen from nasal drip, but I had a really cute baby staring at me. Hopefully we can get some pictures of her soon. Cameras, USB cables, and the sun have not been cooperating.

We’re going to see the Wallace and Gromit movie in the Garland Theatre here in about a half hour. So I should go.