About 40-50 people were in church this morning which was a lot less than I was expecting for Christmas Eve. The service went okay though the sermon went on a tad too long.

After the service, dad opted to go “straight home” instead of out to lunch, but then insisted we stop and pick up his coffee first. Once we got dad back to the house, it was off to lunch in downtown Shamokin. The food was good, but the service was a bit slow today.

Skip ahead a few hours (trust me, you’re not missing anything), my parents come by the apartment to pick me up for dinner-snack party over at a friend’s house. We walk up the path to their house the snowman lights start singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” I thought it was kinda cute, but dad turned to my mom and said “Don’t ever buy one of these.”

Inside, the food was okay – the usual assortment of cookies and other light holiday snacks. I didn’t know anyone there, but a few people apparently knew me. The highlight of the visit though was the pet goat someone brought over to the house with them (cue lots of lame “Hey, Barb, are you guys too lazy to mow the lawn now?”). Not long after the goat thing died down, dad practically pushes us out the door to get to the evening service.
This time, it was different – the sanctuary was almost full when we arrived and they were already out of candles. The service wasn’t quite as smooth though – about midway through the first reading, the pianist starts playing the first hymn. The pastor gets up and says:

“This is Casey, our guest pianist. She’s new here, and I told her we were a very relaxed congregation. So we’re not angry with her, are we?” The congregation dutifully responds “no.”

Later in the service, the bell choir was doing a song, and one of the ringers was slightly off. So the choir director angrily motions everyone to stop and start over again. The pastor’s wife had this nervous look like she screwed up. She was still slightly off for the duration of the piece, and the director had this frustrated look on her face. But it was funny because no-one said anything.

Normally, after the service, we head back to the house to open gifts. But I live across town from them and we decided to save gifts for the formal dinner tomorrow. Servus and Merry Christmas.