Moving On

So far, so good. It's Wednesday night and I'm still alive. This week has been CRAZY busy, I've never crammed so much into four days as has been crammed into these past four.

Our Kindergarten Christmas party was a success yesterday. But you probably wouldn't expect anything else when lots of candy and chips and cookies were found in over abundance. I know we did other things but the day went by so quickly I couldn't even tell you what we did. Then last night we were invited over some friends' house for dinner. It was the best dinner I've had in a long time and I totally pigged out. She made this pulled chicken soup with a southwestern flair. Then the salad had tons of sides to go with it, like olives, corn, cheese, kidney beans, sour cream... There was also salsa and, my personal favorite, guacamole with chips!!! Everyone else was done eating, and had been for a bit, while I was working on my second bowl of soup and chowing down on the chips with guacamole. My mom would have been totally embarrassed if she had been there, fortunately D didn't care, or didn't notice... After dinner we watched Christmas with the Kranks and I have to admit it was very entertaining.

We got home much later than I wanted to, so D helped me make Calzone Pinwheels for my staff Christmas party the next day. It's a neat recipe and they were a big hit today, so it was worth it. Speaking of today, we made gingerbread cookies in Kindergarten and they actually came out good. I don't think my kids would have really cared if the results were disastrous, they just love the entire cooking process. So, needless to say, we (they) made a huge mess by the time we were through pouring, mixing, rolling, cookie cutting, and decorating our little gingerbread men. But they were delish, especially with all that frosting on them!

Not that I needed another snack to add to my menu today. We got huge party platters full of chicken nuggets and wraps from Chick-fil-A to go along with a variety of chips and dips, calzone pinwheels, and desserts, desserts, desserts for the staff party. I think they will be eating that food well into next week (while I'm on vacation!!!). Thus begins a good week and a half of non-stop eating! Also entertaining me this afternoon was the baby brother of one of my students. He's just nine pounds, at two and a half months, after being born two months premature and he is such a doll!! He's so cute and cuddly and quite the charmer. Everyone asks when I'm going to have one, but he'll do just fine for now. He cried when I put him back in his room so I think he even likes me! Either that or they were tears of relief that he didn't have to hear his sister's constant chatter in the background.

While all this is going on this week, David is ordering a new cell phone and accessories, (ok I admit) going on some errands for me, and hanging out with friends. Matter of fact, that's where he is now, which means I will be the one packing up and cleaning up before we leave on our (yay!) extended vacation tomorrow night!!! All I have to get through is our Christmas show tomorrow afternoon and I'm home free!

I am happy to report that people in Lancaster County are not afraid of the word "Christmas" nor do they have difficulty publicly acknowledging anything associated with it. Our hotel even had a Christmas tree in its lobby. We saw big, bright colored lights and nativity scenes everywhere, even at places that were obviously business buildings. It was...refreshing. We left home around 10:30 on Saturday morning and made the hour and a half drive to Lancaster to see Sounds of Christmas at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater (actually for us it was a lunch theater because the seats were better and the tickets were cheaper).

We made a quick stop at a Walmart on the way and we knew that we had arrived in Lancaster County because of the Amish buggy making its way through the parking lot. What could the Amish possibly want at Walmart when basically everything they own is homemade and without the use of electricity? I'd be interested in knowing that, too. Another observation: if you want to know the type of people who live in a certain area, go to the local Walmart. This particular store was a supercenter, which I hadn't previously been to, but it also had a huge selection of hunting paraphernalia with a wide variety of camaflouge, guns, and gun accessories. And I just might have happened upon the shoe section and was appauled to find what I thought were the only choices in women's dress shoes. I use the word "choice" very loosely because they were all the same simple, black, 1/2" heel, $6.47 type of shoe that are standard issue for the Mennonite women-an entire section of them! Too bad the camera was in the car.

Anyway, we arrived at the theater, visited the lunch buffet and the dessert buffet, and took in our surroundings. It's a really cool setup and rather than try to describe it, here's a seating chart: We were at table B8, so we were in the front of our section. The production was very well done. Unfortunately we weren't able to take any pictures due to "copyright laws and for the safety of the performers," but it was fast-paced and they were able to cram 41 Christmas songs into the two-hour performance. We started way back in 1910 with Christmas in Central Park where many nationalities and traditions were represented and explained. Then it was Christmas 1949 and a winter wonderland theme with songs like Baby It's Cold Outside, Favorite Things, Let It Snow, and Sleigh Ride. After Intermission, we saw Christmas in the Country where we peaked in on one southern church's Christmas play put on by the children (accents and all!). We were encouraged to sing along with songs like It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Away in a Manger, and Joy to the World. I really liked this part of the show, it had the cuteness factor along with some kid humor that you probably have to be a teacher to appreciate. Then there was some random "Under the Tree Toy Fantasia" scene where they sang/danced to The Nutcracker Suite and a few other original Christmas songs. Then the show was rounded out with "Swingin' Santa" and the title of one song describes this scene best: Zoot Suit Santa. Most of the songs had a jazzy spin to them, and we love jazz, so we enjoyed the finale. The actors/dancers were excellent and the costumes brought you back to the time period represented. This was probably more than you ever wanted to know about a Christmas show, but I really wanted to write snippets so I can look back and remember it!

All that sitting and watching tired me out, so we checked into our hotel which ended up being five minutes away, and we relaxed until dinnertime. Since we'll be driving to CT on D's birthday, I thought it'd be a good idea to celebrate early...which worked out because David is not only a member of the Cold Stone Creamery Birthday Club, but he's also a member of Ruby Tuesday's Bday Club. That means we had a coupon for a free Chocolate Tallcake, and boy was it tall! Here's a before and after shot...of the cake and of how D felt before and after eating it (with my help):



















We got our complimentary breakfast of muffins and danish the next morning, and we even got juice after Dave inquired as to why the juice machine wasn't working. Check out was at 11am, so we left for home then. The ride home went by really quick, but I managed to snap some pictures of Lancaster on our way out:

A very important sign!

Typical Lancaster scenery...

D ate at the restaurant advertised here when he went to Lancaster with his family years ago.
Oops, how'd that sneak in here? Well, while we're on the subject, I LOVE Auntie Anne's pretzels and can sniff them out anywhere. We stopped by a different Walmart on the way home and the minute we walked in, I asked Dave, "Is that Auntie Anne's I smell?" Sure enough, it was and Dave let me get one. And did you know they sell make-your-own-Auntie- Anne's pretzel kits? Dave didn't let me get it though.

Finally, our weekend ended with my boss's Christmas program at her church at night. We missed our church's program in CT and we will miss our church's program here while we're in CT, so we wanted to go to this one. We went last year and thoroughly enjoyed it, so we were invited and attended again this year. We even got this neat little ornament that I am sure will look nice on our future big tree.

It's only going to get busier from here, especially in kindergarten, this week. We went to see the Nutcracker ballet (an abridged version for short attention spans) and then to lunch at Friendly's today, we're having our Christmas party tomorrow, baking and decorating gingerbread men on Wednesday, and performing a song and dance number to Home for the Holidays in our "Holiday" program on Thursday. Not to mention other get-togethers and packing plans going on this week...did someone say something about a vacation??

With 9 days left until Christmas I am in total Christmas-mode. We finished wrapping about 99% of our gifts last night. Christmas music, and good company, make wrapping not such a tedious thing. I'm always good about getting my Christmas shopping done well in advance...but I've been known to leave wrapping until extremely last minute. At which point I think how pointless it is to wrap the gifts since they will be unwrapped very shortly. Fortuntely, Dave was very much in the wrapping groove this year and we got everything done in a few nights. Now all we have to do is transport them safely to Connecticut.

Tonight, after dinner, we got hot chocolate at the local Wawa (I know, it's an incredibly funny name, but they had a "Merry Christmas" sign hanging up so they're my new favorite store!) and headed out to see some Christmas lights. There is such a range of decorating styles, from absolutely nothing to owning stock in the local energy company. There were a few houses we oohed and ahhed over and one even looked like a real-life gingerbread house. The morning talkshow host we faithfully listen to has started a campaign to bring back the "big, fat colored lights" that quite noticeably have been replaced by "boring and pretentious" white lights. He would be disappointed to know that we saw more white light displays than colored light displays. And while the white lights do give off a more elegant ambiance, the colored lights are defintely more fun to look at. They are more fun to look at, provided they aren't accompanied by those HUGE inflatible characters which are incredibly gaudy looking if more than one are in the same yard...in my humble opinion. One house had Santa and a reindeer standing side-by-side (and very disproportionate, which obviously means they were never intended to be side-by-side) and Frosty a few feet away waving at the both of them. Um...no. It's displays like this that make me wonder what their interior decorations look like all year round. Sorry, that was kind of mean. Anyway, we had a very fun Christmas-light-looking experience which will probably turn into a tradition since we've been doing it for the past few years.

This incredible work--requested by a forgotten parish priest, written by a poet who would later split from the church, given soaring music by a Jewish composer, and brought to Americans to serve as much as a tool to spotlight the sinful nature of slavery as tell the story of the birth of a Savior--has become one of the most beautiful, inspired pieces of music ever created.

"The strange and fascinating story of "O Holy Night" began in France, yet eventually made its way around the world. This seemingly simple song, inspired by a request from a clergyman, would not only become one of the most beloved anthems of all time, it would mark a technological revolution that would forever change the way people were introduced to music.
In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure was the commissionaire of wines in a small French town. Known more for his poetry than his church attendance, it probably shocked Placide when his parish priest asked the commissionaire to pen a poem for Christmas mass. Nevertheless, the poet was honored to share his talents with the church.

In a dusty coach traveling down a bumpy road to France's capital city, Placide Cappeau considered the priest's request. Using the gospel of Luke as his guide, Cappeau imagined witnessing the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Thoughts of being present on the blessed night inspired him. By the time he arrived in Paris, "Cantique de Noel" had been completed.
Moved by his own work, Cappeau decided that his "Cantique de Noel" was not just a poem, but a song in need of a master musician's hand. Not musically inclined himself, the poet turned to one of his friends, Adolphe Charles Adams, for help.

The son of a well-known classical musician, Adolphe had studied in the Paris conservatoire. His talent and fame brought requests to write works for orchestras and ballets all over the world. Yet the lyrics that his friend Cappeau gave him must have challenged the composer in a fashion unlike anything he received from London, Berlin, or St. Petersburg.
As a man of Jewish ancestry, for Adolphe the words of "Cantique de Noel" represented a day he didn't celebrate and a man he did not view as the son of God. Nevertheless, Adams quickly went to work, attempting to marry an original score to Cappeau's beautiful words. Adams' finished work pleased both poet and priest. The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

Initially, "Cantique de Noel" was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France and the song quickly found its way into various Catholic Christmas services. But when Placide Cappeau walked away from the church and became a part of the socialist movement, and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the song--which had quickly grown to be one of the most beloved Christmas songs in France--was suddenly and uniformly denounced by the church. The heads of the French Catholic church of the time deemed "Cantique de Noel" as unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion." Yet even as the church tried to bury the Christmas song, the French people continued to sing it, and a decade later a reclusive American writer brought it to a whole new audience halfway around the world.

Not only did this American writer--John Sullivan Dwight--feel that this wonderful Christmas song needed to be introduced to America, he saw something else in the song that moved him beyond the story of the birth of Christ. An ardent abolitionist, Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the third verse: "Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease." The text supported Dwight's own view of slavery in the South. Published in his magazine, Dwight's English translation of "O Holy Night" quickly found favor in America, especially in the North during the Civil War.

Back in France, even though the song had been banned from the church for almost two decades, many commoners still sang "Cantique de Noel" at home. Legend has it that on Christmas Eve 1871, in the midst of fierce fighting between the armies of Germany and France, during the Franco-Prussian War, a French soldier suddenly jumped out of his muddy trench. Both sides stared at the seemingly crazed man. Boldly standing with no weapon in his hand or at his side, he lifted his eyes to the heavens and sang, "Minuit, Chretiens, c'est l'heure solennelle ou L'Homme Dieu descendit jusqu'a nous," the beginning of "Cantique de Noel."

After completing all three verses, a German infantryman climbed out his hiding place and answered with, "Vom Himmel noch, da komm' ich her. Ich bring' euch gute neue Mar, Der guten Mar bring' ich so viel, Davon ich sing'n und sagen will," the beginning of Martin Luther's robust "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come."

The story goes that the fighting stopped for the next twenty-four hours while the men on both sides observed a temporary peace in honor of Christmas day. Perhaps this story had a part in the French church once again embracing "Cantique de Noel" in holiday services." by Ace Collins



Or you can play this that D found for me...if you like the (synthesized?) flute better. Enjoy!

Saturday night we had the opportunity to experience something like a Nativity Walk, except it was much more extensive and it didn’t just focus on the nativity scene. We went with quite a big group from our church to a nearby church that transforms its building for the purpose of taking you through the true meaning of Christmas story. Our smaller group of sixteen was given the tribal name Benjamin, meaning raucous wolf, and we met our tour guide – a Roman centurion. He brought us to hear the prophet Isaiah foretell the coming of a Savior, then to see Mary when she learned that she would be the mother of the Messiah. We went with her to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist and we eavesdropped on their conversation.

As we continued our journey we met a cranky old Census Taker who complained about the crowded streets of Bethlehem and a much nicer Innkeeper who spoke of having no room in his inn.

We stopped at his inn for a meal of pita bread, cheese, and grape juice before patronizing the Marketplace. We were given eight gold coins to spend in the marketplace which had a bakery (we sampled barley, the poor man’s food, with honey on top), a candy shop (where Dave spent most of his coins on their fudge), a carpentry shop where kids could make dreidels, a candle shop where I made this candle, and a potter’s shop where I made a stand for my candle (yes, the candle is in a sad state, I know, and that's with about 40 dips and a sore elbow). You could also choose to do weaving, repair fish nets, weights and measures, or visit the scribe to write your name in Hebrew. Background music was being played on the santour. There was a spice and herb shop where we got to see, touch, and smell frankincense and myrrh (among many other herbs and spices). Both of us were hit up by the tax collector and D said he lost a few coins to some beggars. Figures. No beggars came up to me… Dave was enjoying the music (and interrogating the musicians about their instruments) so much so that he didn’t hear our tribe being called and missed meeting the shepherds out in the field who were told by an angel that a Savior had been born.

David was still enjoying the music in the marketplace when the rest of our group found the baby in a manger with Mary and Joseph. The poor baby had been there for hours already and was a bit cranky, but exceptionally adorable all wrapped up in swaddling clothes like baby Jesus would have been. This was when D finally made an appearance and wanted to stay so he could experience what he had missed with another tribe. He couldn’t though because we carpooled with other people. This church did a phenomenal job making everything as real-life as possible and everyone who went thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I’m even debating whether or not to get D a santour for his birthday.

We had a very enjoyable 18-hour visit with Dave's parents this Friday night and Saturday morning. His mom hadn't seen our new apartment yet and his dad hadn't seen it in order and looking relatively clean. So it was nice to show them around and take them on the three-minute tour.

But the tour took place after dinner because we were all starving by the time they arrived around 6pm. We had a very nice dinner at Charlie Brown's, right near our church. We even somehow managed to avoid Coldstone Creamery which was in the same plaza! I think we all ate too much because we settled down for a movie when we got home, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and many of us promptly fell asleep...some longer than others.

This morning, we were out of the house by 10am and on our way to IHOP for a late breakfast. After showing Mom and Dad the hospital where Dave is working (side note: D ends his Family Medicine rotation this week and has a two week Christmas vacation. When he returns in January, he will be doing surgery for twelve weeks! I can't believe he's already this far into his third year!!!), they got on the road! We'll see them in 12 days, according to my countdown, which, I should have probably mentioned, is also D's 27th birthday.

Mom and Dad gave us some housewarming gifts and my personal favorite is the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Celebration CD. I'm still puzzling over the fact that we didn't already have it because we saw them live last year at the Wachovia Center in Philly. All the songs on the CD are all the songs they performed last year which we really, really, really enjoyed. Anyway, it's been playing for quite a few hours now...much to the chagrin of David :).

That was a quote from The Christmas Carol by one Ganzo, uh, I mean, Charles Dickens. We continued kicking off December, and the Christmas season, with some more festivities. Saturday night we all went over Keith and Julie's for dinner and some Christmas movies. Julie had the awesome idea of ordering a party platter of popcorn chicken from Chick-fil-A. We ate every single piece and could have eaten more - delicious! She also made this cheesecake that was one of the best we have ever had.

So back to the Dickens quote. We, being the adults that we are, decided on two movies to watch: The Muppets Christmas Carol and Jingle All the Way. Dad and I would always watch It's A Wonderful Life and D said his family would always watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I guess lots of people have their own little Christmas-moving-watching traditions. In any case here are my personal ratings:

A












B












A+












A+

I designated Friday night as Put Up Our Christmas Decorations Night complete with Christmas music and hot chocolate. Dave was a willing participant (I think it was the promise of hot chocolate that tipped the scales), so we were off to a great start after we got our naps in. First we had to find the box of Christmas items, which could have been tricky if it was under all of the boxes and other stuff piled high in our hall closet. Fortunately, it wasn't. We had put it in our little storage area near the washing machines, so that was easy.

D had the job of assembling our 32” Christmas tree my grandma had bought for us a few years ago. I think he did a fine job…


Meanwhile, I was setting up more of the decorations my grandma had just recently given to us and other odds and ends we have accumulated in our two years together.



Oh yes, D also had the task of stringing these lights on our blinds. He did a good job on that, too.

I was getting adventurous and some of the decorations spilled over into the kitchen and bathroom.


A trip to Target was necessary because they have the best hot chocolate ever. It probably has something to do with the fact that I didn’t make it because I’m a terrible hot chocolate-maker. We were delayed a few minutes because of the sheets of rain pouring down outside, but that soon passed and we made it to Target without incident. D decided to be all fancy and add coffee to his hot chocolate, but I just had straight up hot chocolate and breadsticks. Actually we both had breadsticks because we had late lunches and weren’t hungry for dinner. I know, not the best dinner we’ve had but it was cheap so it had that going for it. While at Target, we also got some red lights that we wrapped around our balcony to complete our decorating date. I was thinking of getting a few more things to add to our Christmas decorations collection, but D informed me that he was only good for one decorating date. That said, I did get this poinsettia out of him today.