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Christmas Lights
I'm a Christmas light addict. From toddlerhood on, my favorite holiday activity was to drive around the nicer parts of town to look at the Christmas light displays. Tulsa had some spectacular ones when I was a kid. Here in St. Louis, we often make a ritual of driving around on Christmas night to enjoy all of the neighborhood displays. But if it's mild, as it has been this week, we often just walk around our village and look at lights on foot, which gives us a chance to admire them up close. We did that last Friday night and enjoyed it. Of course, it's not fair to look without contributing. Since we lack outdoor electrical outlets, we have to settle for letting our inside tree be seen through the front porch French doors. And since we often use our back door for entry, and guests do too, Norm always drapes the fence along the driveway with swags of evergreen, white lights and red bows. At night (see below) it's an arresting sight. Even more so with snow on them. He is able to use an outlet in the garage for these lights.
We have been busy with Advent activities. A week or so ago, our church was able to reach a milestone in its accessibility campaign. Members have raised over $105,000, more than 87 percent of the goal for the project, so we should be able to begin construction early in 2007. That's one of the projects Norm and I have worked on most intensively this year and the response has been...miraculous. Our reading group discussed the memoir Mixed by Angela Nissel and it was especially poignant since one member has a mixed race grandchild, one member is in a mixed marriage, and another member has nieces who are of mixed race. And then there was the young woman with a Nigerian father and a white mother who saw our book club notice in a bookstore, called one of the members and showed up at the coffee house for our meeting, bringing many more experiences for us to share. On Saturday our pastor held an open house which we enjoyed immensely. It was so warm, many of us gathered on the patio out back around the copper fire pit...all that was missing was some marshmallows and sticks to roast them on. Sunday we had a carry-in dinner after church, with lots of visiting and informal caroling. I was knitting furiously to finish a scarf for the Tree of Warmth that benefits clients of our family crisis ministry, Isaiah 58. I managed to finish it just after dessert! I'm still not sure when the Christmas letter will be written or the cards sent. We have plans to do some traveling during the holidays, so our big party and communication season may be Epiphany this year. Whatever your holiday plans or preparations, we wish you the merriest. Please do drop us a line or comment and let us know what you are doing.
I'm a Christmas light addict. From toddlerhood on, my favorite holiday activity was to drive around the nicer parts of town to look at the Christmas light displays. Tulsa had some spectacular ones when I was a kid. Here in St. Louis, we often make a ritual of driving around on Christmas night to enjoy all of the neighborhood displays. But if it's mild, as it has been this week, we often just walk around our village and look at lights on foot, which gives us a chance to admire them up close. We did that last Friday night and enjoyed it. Of course, it's not fair to look without contributing. Since we lack outdoor electrical outlets, we have to settle for letting our inside tree be seen through the front porch French doors. And since we often use our back door for entry, and guests do too, Norm always drapes the fence along the driveway with swags of evergreen, white lights and red bows. At night (see below) it's an arresting sight. Even more so with snow on them. He is able to use an outlet in the garage for these lights.
We have been busy with Advent activities. A week or so ago, our church was able to reach a milestone in its accessibility campaign. Members have raised over $105,000, more than 87 percent of the goal for the project, so we should be able to begin construction early in 2007. That's one of the projects Norm and I have worked on most intensively this year and the response has been...miraculous. Our reading group discussed the memoir Mixed by Angela Nissel and it was especially poignant since one member has a mixed race grandchild, one member is in a mixed marriage, and another member has nieces who are of mixed race. And then there was the young woman with a Nigerian father and a white mother who saw our book club notice in a bookstore, called one of the members and showed up at the coffee house for our meeting, bringing many more experiences for us to share. On Saturday our pastor held an open house which we enjoyed immensely. It was so warm, many of us gathered on the patio out back around the copper fire pit...all that was missing was some marshmallows and sticks to roast them on. Sunday we had a carry-in dinner after church, with lots of visiting and informal caroling. I was knitting furiously to finish a scarf for the Tree of Warmth that benefits clients of our family crisis ministry, Isaiah 58. I managed to finish it just after dessert! I'm still not sure when the Christmas letter will be written or the cards sent. We have plans to do some traveling during the holidays, so our big party and communication season may be Epiphany this year. Whatever your holiday plans or preparations, we wish you the merriest. Please do drop us a line or comment and let us know what you are doing.
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