Barb's Blog

Katie, Bill and I all slept in late today. Nice not having an agenda that needed to get done. Bill checked the post office one more time for the last few Christmas packages coming in, but to no avail. I guess we’ll celebrate the holiday over a period of days.

Once back home Bill plugged into the football games while I finished sewing up one of Bill and Erin’s Christmas presents. Nice to have that done!

Bill gave us a call. Good to hear he arrived in Cook safely and is enjoying an Aune Christmas.

Katie snoozed, watched a little TV, and connected with some of her PLU friends.

We went to the Bayside Church Christmas Eve Service. I thought the service started at 5:30 so we walked in about 20 minutes late. Drat! The place was full. I’m still glad we went. I enjoy our yearly Christmas Eve celebration. People from the congregation step forward and share their musical talent, then we sing a few traditional songs of the season, followed by Pastor Dan reading Luke 2, the birth of Christ. We end the service by all circling the church. We’re each given a candle. Pastor starts by lighting his candle from the alter then he in turn lights the candle to his right and left. Each person continues lighting their own candle on around the circle until the lit candles meet. We sing John 3:16 to the tune of Silent Night as the candles are being lit.

A brief tour around town to look at all the lights made it very apparent that people are feeling the higher electric fees this winter and have cut back on the festive lighting.

Bill had put together our annual chowder with shrimp and halibut. Yum!

We just had some of the neighbors swing by singing Christmas carols and the neighbors out behind are shooting off occational fireworks. Nice.

All for now. Katie and I are going to harang Bill into some kind of board game to wrap up the evening. Take time to think about the real meaning of this holiday. Merry Christmas!