At the beginning of December, Blogmas seemed like a good idea but as you can tell if you’re a regular it hasn’t always happened the way it should have.
This weekend is a bit bananas. Today Chris is at four church services. I’ve managed to only have to be at two. The first is at Renhold, where my parents attend. Chris took the family service at the beginning of November and decided he’d sign up for another service so got the morning service slot.
Chris thought this was a good idea when he signed up for it. He then got asked to be part of the Carol Service at Woodside which then entailed him being at three more services today.
This morning Chris spoke about how Christmas carols can portray an “idealistic” view of Christmas so Jesus being silent like in Away in a Manger or the there were three kings (We Three Kings), we know there were the three named gives given to Jesus but were there more Wise Men, maybe they had an entourage or more gifts.
Chris also played the video called The Well Good News by The Bible Society. I’ve seen it twice now and it’s so clever. The line when the Angel is telling Mary that she’s going to have a baby and the narrator talks about a “belly bump” always makes me laugh. You can see the video here.
While Chris spoke, Jaxon and I were out in the Sunday school room. I was making an angel with the other girlies, while Jaxon played with a jigsaw puzzle on the floor and then protested when he wasnt allows a second biscuit!
Following the service we dashed to Woodside to drop off for the technical run through. Jaxon and I went home for lunch and then completed some errands before bringing lunch to Chris. Apparently the fact that I brought him lunch got me bonus brownie points!
I’m off to the first of these three. I was originally going just as a congregation person but on Friday I had a call from one of the guys at church asking if I could do one of the readings at the first Carol Service. I said yes before really thinking about it. Oops! Who was going to look after Jaxon while I went up to do the reading? (Thankfully, a friend of mine came to the rescue and then I ended up sat on the same row as my Aunt and Uncle so between them they all kept an eye on Jaxon which was great).
The Christmas series this year was based around A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The three weeks leading up to the Carol Service were Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future (or Christmas Yet To Come).
A few weeks back one of the girls in our community group put the call out for help with painting set so I spent a couple of hours at church a few weeks back painting bits and pieces and then spent one Friday morning while Jaxon was at preschool helping with the next bit.
Although we’d chatted about some bits and the theming in the foyer etc I hadn’t really got an idea of what it would be like and even on Friday when we went to church to focus the lights it was still in progress so when I arrived today it was so good to see it all come together.
I quickly snapped these pictures while juggling Jaxon, so some aren’t great but they give an idea of what it was like.
The boards that I had painted, had then had these windows cut into them to make them into silhouettes of buildings. The finished article is just great.
The band opened the service with their take on Pentatonix’s arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and oh my word it was so good!! I was very impressed. I managed to video some of it on my iPad. (You can see it here).
My reading came after Silent Night, so I headed to the back of the hall so that during the final verse I could head towards the stage on the right side where I was to read as per my instructions.
The stage light was so bright that when I did try to look up and make eye contact I was being blinded so I decided I try to look vaguely over to where Jaxon was sat and then aim towards the sound desk where Chris was sat and hoped that would help with doing it right. I had a little fluff on the words in the middle so I stopped, took a deep breathe then carried on. I figured it was better for me to pause and restart than get more flustered!!
At the end of the service, I decided I needed to get Jaxon home as soon as I could. He’d spent the best part of 4 hours being told to sit still or be quite so I decided to get him home and allow him time was play or run around was needed. Once we got home he was so pleased to be home I’m not sure what he knew quite what to do first!
