Christmas festivities of every kind...

It's Christmas party time 'round these parts! Perhaps you can relate. One of the joys of this internship is getting to celebrate holidays and special occasions with several different groups of wonderful people.

The Holden ladies' group kicked it off with their dinner a couple weeks ago. It was partly just to celebrate and enjoy fellowship, partly to thank the men of the congregation for all they do throughout the year, and partly to gather the Christmas gifts they had collected for a local family, which you see below.








The ladies of Dale held a lunch and gift exchange the same week in someone's home. (It was postponed a day due to one of our many recent weather incidents--this one was ice). I forgot to take pictures, which is quite unfortunate, as it was a Christmas wonderland! By the way, we ate tater-tot hotdish at both the Holden and Dale events. Yum.

The Gol and Grace ladies each had respective Christmas gatherings planned as well, and they were both canceled or postponed, one on the icy day and one on the blizzard weekend. I certainly hope we get to gather sometime soon!

This past weekend was full of fun! Saturday morning, the Trinity ladies held a brunch/tea in someone's home and it was delightful. Again with the sadness of no pictures...the table was so lovely! An assortment teacups and pretty little lace napkins and all things girly and fun.

Saturday afternoon, I hung around the Hegre Christmas program practice, which they had invited me to weeks ago. I got a kick out of the holy chaos inherent in every Christmas program, in my experience. You've got the kids with stage fright, the overly-exuberant kids, the kids who have to go potty at the worst times. And also the well-prepared and enthusiastic kids, of course. And most of the kids switch between these roles several times over the course of the rehearsal! Here's the group singing one of their songs.





Saturday night (event number three--full day for me!) I joined the staff of the Dennison-Vang parish for dinner at the Hubbell House. It was a pleasure to spend more time with folks I mostly see just briefly before or after worship every few weeks. It was also nice to meet some of the Dennison folks I don't work with, as Dennison is not part of the internship group this year.

Sunday morning, I led worship at Trinity, and the choir proclaimed the word in the form of a terrific cantata. Well-chosen, well-prepared, well-performed. When it started with "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones," I knew we were in for a great ride! Here's the lovely and talented group.





Finally, I joined the folks of First Lutheran for an afternoon of carols and desserts. We got to sing a wide variety of Christmas songs and hymns, from "Deck the Halls" and "Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" to "Once in David's Royal City" and "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly." So much fun! Here's the pretty set up...maybe not the most exciting picture* but I love a nice Christmas centerpiece!

I think that's it until Christmas Eve itself--always a joyful worship experience!

* I hesitate with photos of people. I don't want everyone to start hiding when I show up, for fear of ending up online! One particular person has already adopted a refrain of sorts: "No blog!" Said person has reason to be suspicious, because s/he provides lots of material for highly entertaining posts (which I haven't shared...yet), but I would hate to cause paranoia among the innocent!