Christmas 2014

It began with singing in a traditonal Lessons and Carols, which we used to do at All Saints Vevey. Lately, L&C services have made their way into many church calendars, usually leaning towards a song/reading format bereft of liturgical sense, however; ie not much waiting involved.  Christ Church followed King's service in Cambridge, our music director taking cues from the Ralph Vaughn Williams era of the service's history. It was very moving to participate in the evening, creating something together.  

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Stepping back, we first gathered as a church, with advent lessons and gingerbread housemaking,

preparing for the L&C by studying Sainsbury's supermarket's well-produced ad this Christmas, marking various truces between British and German soldiers; 2014 marking the 100th anniversary of WWI, as did the Tower of London's art installation:

a sea of approximately 900K ceramic poppies representing the UK dead. 

WWI was the immediate context for Cambridge's Lessons & Carols Service, inaugurated 1918 by an army chaplain, remembering "those in a distant shore" in the bidding prayer. Misery and bloodshed accompanies Christmas, historically speaking, as in King Herod's slaughter of the innocents and evoked in the melancholy of many carols:  the bleak midwinter, indeed.

The L&C service readings from Genesis and Isaiah foretell the coming of the messiah, mirroring a grand medieval tradition of the Jesse Tree:

"And he shall come from the root of Jesse":

This panel of the Tree is from Chartres Cathedral, a branch of Jesse birthing David and so on, leading to Christ, but

the medieval section of the MET has a smaller example! The windows vary from church to church, as do the gospel genealogies, highlighting different meanings, but all reinforcing spiritual adoption - a concept whose time has come, making sense of those birthing metaphors: "You must be born again to enter the kingdom of God."

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We took in "A Christmas Carol" at the delightful Glendale Circle Theater, as well.

Back to Eve. After a night of wrapping, we got up for our orange rolls, an Edith Schaeffer favorite, easing into panettone later in the day.BTW, I bought a pricey panettone from an Italian pastry chef, but found not much difference in quality? Our favorite thus far dates to a Trader Joe's purchase in the '90s in which whole chestnuts were encrusted on top and throughout.Auntie Ev couldn't make it, due to her new nursing job placing her at the bottom of the pecking order, but grandpa flew in from IL, which was a mean feat at nearly 90!  Michael and Jack enjoy Aunt Stephanie's exuberance and humor.

  Hard to match the energy levels of the boys who were very patient to wait for the grown-ups to mobilize for the morning.

Aunt Stephanie has discovered many Hebraic traditions in her fellowship, introducing us to a menorah tradition.

Looking at these photos, it strikes me M&J have graced us with another cycle of youth, like a family of kids moving into the neighborhood.

It's hard to emphasize enough the waiting of advent is not waiting upon the birth - which obviously already occurred - but another coming. Lest Christmas fossilize into nostalgia, a spiritual Groundhog Day, a ruthless pounding away of the years, rather than true hope of something new.

Appropriately closing with kid art: