Silent Night....

We're just starting to recover from the Christmas family visit. Brother and sister-in-law and nephew came for Christmas after all, so there was nonstop craziness involving a three year old. I can see from where I sit the smudges all across my windows. There was a creche incident. He licked an entire stick of butter during Christmas dinner at my in-laws. His parents don't make him nap; he doesn't have an established bedtime or dinnertime routine. He sleeps with his parents. Poorly at that. I told my dad that if he couldn't eat and sleep, the hard things were really going to be hard for him. My sister told me that the only real structure he has is when he goes to preschool. Poor baby.

The Christmas Eve service was basically done in the dimmest light the light guys could muster without people falling over themselves. BrownBear was tapped to light the Christ Candle this year; her qualifications: tall, present and child. Apparently, she wasn't quite tall enough because when she had got to the Advent wreath, there was a box for her to stand on. Good idea, because the wreath itself was pretty tall. The Christ Candle has been used for several years and had burned down the middle: she lit the candle used to light the candle (confused yet?) and bent over to light the Christ Candle and tried and tried and tried ..... and almost fell over. There was a collective gasp in the church and LawyerBoy and I (he on the front row ushering and I in the choir loft) nearly stood up together. But BrownBear pulled it together and tried again. She righted herself and got the candle lit. Thank goodness.

Now the funny. In this darkness, we always light candles during "Silent Night." This year, things got changed up a little bit and there was a soloist singing the first verse and then the choir was going to pick up the second or third verse (see what's coming?) while the candles were being lit. As the candles were beginning to be lit, that one perfect voice was singing. It was beautiful. Then the choir started. The problem was the darkness. Our candles were still dark. Our verse.. was it the second or third? I know it starts Silent Night, but then what? Oh heavens..... garble, garble, garble. It's a good thing it was Christmas Eve and ChoirGuy was in a forgiving mood. If we could have seen, we would have been gravy. However, we just didn't know.... and as my brother and my father-in-law wanted to know, what was so funny? Didn't you hear? Do you hear what I hear? Apparently not through the laughter in the loft.