Christmas Will Never Be the Same

Somethings don't work at the last moment.

For instance: I went back to my parent's church today. We just got back from Florida and haven't been around much in the last 3 or4 months. So, imagine my surprise when I find out that my sister and I are supposed to be Mary and Joseph in thier Christmas thing tonight. Aside from the general weirdness of the whole situation and the fact that as hard as we tried we could not get out of it, this wasn't a normal Christmas thing.

You see the whole program involved people getting up and singing with the Christmas story being read inbetween. In fact, Rachel and I were to do the opening song, thus requirking us to get in costume after it. Well, naturally you might think, "Why do you even need Mary and Joseph in this sort of thing?" We're still wondering that.

So, after the song, we hurried away to wrap sheets around ourselves in a biblical type manner. Granted I had no clue how to do this. So I stood around the back room off to the side of the sanctuary, where I found an answering machine. Being the curious, but not so sensible person I am I hit the play button, while Rachel was getting her outfit ready.

It was loud . . . I had no way to turn it off . . .

So, I did what any sensible person would. I flipped it upside down so the speaker would be muffled by the floor. What followed was a freindly electronic voice repeating, "Message deleted" over and over again. At this point Rachel pointed out that I was probably deleting all the messages left for the church. So I unplugged the thing. As far as I know it is still unplugged.

Then our cue came. Unfortunately Rachel had mixed-up the rope for our waists and I am considerably bigger than her. So, I couldn't breathe. In addition I almost tripped coming out, while Rachel tried desperately to hold back her amusement with the whole situation. After this we proceeded to do exactly what we were instructed to do.

We sat.

That was it. I dutifully watched the rest of the program while on the verge of passing out from the restrictive belt and trying unsuccessfully to cover my khakis with the sheet. On the plus side, the program actually only lasted an hour and there was food afterwards.

Also, Marion Hodges brought a hammered dulcimer which sounded stupendous. I even got to play a little afterwards, picking out the melody to "Dust in the Wind" on it. It was an interesting night.

Flaming Kiwifruit