Night of the Living Christmas Tree

Jingle Bells and Snowflake are evidently big fans of the movie "Trolls!"  This morning, Madison awoke to find them near the tree, and sporting their own new troll hair style.  We had a busy day today, of course all starting out with KidPak, and another part of the "Lone Star Christmas" series.  Last week, we had Nerdo and his special Christmas Guest.  This week, Robbie was after that one gift for Christmas, a Red Rider BB Gun.  We had all kinds of obstacles and challenges to the morning, starting with the simultaneous Nativity Set upstairs.  Madison would have been Mary but for the fact that she didn't want to miss a single service of KidPak.  Daddy backed off on that, though he was really hoping she could be Mary, he didn't want to force her to do something big like that.  It wasn't because she was frightened or nervous or whatever.  It's just that she didn't want to miss KidPak.  So Daddy worked extra hard on KidPak this morning to make it worthy of her and the other children's attention.  And indeed we do that all the time.  We had a new skit and some funny videos, and just a great morning all together, times two.  Daddy did his Parenting Matters for next weekend, knowing he might miss some time this week coming up.  And soon it was time to get going - we had a tight schedule after church, so we were off and running.

We got home and snacked a bit - Daddy cannot eat much right now, but there was soup and crackers.  Madison ate more than that, of course.  We rested a little bit, and then were off and going back to Gainesville, this time to another church, the First Baptist Church there in town for their annual Christmas program.

It was their Living Christmas Tree.  Which, as may have been discussed before, is a rather odd name.  I mean, by pointing out that it is in fact living, doesn't that indicate that there's a possibility that other churches show a dead one?  Of course, the meaning in this instance is that there are choir members on this tree-shaped platform, exactly 100 this year (I counted).  The lights on the tree were beautiful, as was the music.

They had a Nativity set up in front of the tree, as the choir sang.  Mommy, Madison and Daddy sat in the balcony for the first time, and thought the view was good - we may do that again next year.  This was a nice presentation with a full orchestra, and of course the last song was the stirring "Hallelujah Chorus" by Handel.  Everyone rises for that, although the balcony was a little slower to do so - Daddy sort of was left hanging as he stood up early.  The rest of the folks got it.  This is a mandatory law in Georgia:  you must stand up for the "Hallelujah Chorus."  If you don't, you'll wind up paying a fine, or going to that jail cell where those guys who eat chicken with a fork inside the town limits wind up.

Anyway, it was nice to be back there again.  We left, and went left instead of right, heading over to the new Starbuck's over on Thompson Bridge Road.  The manager we were looking for was not there, but we'll catch her sometime.  We don't usually stop at Starbuck's for a host of reasons, but while there we figured why not pick up a few hot chocolates.  These were just divine.  These were perfect!  Daddy brought them back to the car, and wouldn't you know it?  That very song, "Hot Chocolate" was playing on the car's radio.  Now we were sufficiently armed with hot chocolate, and now we could drive slowly down Green Street to catch the decorated houses.  It was a lovely drive.

We got home with just enough time to watch a short Christmas special, so we checked out "Mickey's Christmas Carol."  We had a few logs for the fire, and a nice evening once again at the foot of our Christmas tree.  Madison went to bed on time - we read from "A Christmas Carol" once more, continuing on with the Spirit of Christmas Present.  And you'd best believe that we were praying hard for tomorrow to go smoothly.  That's when Daddy has his first surgery since some time in the early 70's.  Yikes.

Tonight for prep, there was the shower, and the special pads, the clean bed sheets and the clean pajamas and the early night's rest.  Okay, it wasn't so early - we had to do all that first.  Daddy is anxious to get this pain to go away, and yet at the same time terrified of surgery.  The surgery sounds rather routine, at least.  This is based on what others have been saying.  So off to bed I go, a little more confident, and a little tired too.