Saturday, December 24, 2005

'Twas the Night Before Christmas....

And I finally finished wrapping presents!


And I must say, my living room looks very festive. :-)


And here is a closeup of the ornament Tirithien and I picked out together. Could they possibly be any cuter? :-)

My singing of "O Holy Night" went very well. I felt great about it. There was only one problem. Right in the middle of it, a little 3-year-old girl started yelling that she needed to piddle. Now, when I am singing a solo, especially a solo in church, I don't notice anything except the music, so I actually did not hear this. But her mama told me about it afterwards and apologized. Well, things at Grace Church are never perfect, but they are always good. :-) I will sing again for the 10:30 service, and there probably won't be any little kids at that one!

The thing I always love most about the Midnight Mass, though, is not the music, but the sense of expectant joy. When the service is done and I come outside, it's as if the whole world just for a moment is waiting in perfect silence and perfect joy. The hush of the snowy night wraps us all in peaceful stillness as we wait once more for the Child to be born.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Peace and joy to you all.

7 comments:

Tirithien said...

You sounded [i]fantastic[/i], my kola. :-) I'm proud of you.

Bainwen Gilrana said...

Thank you, my love. That means quite a lot. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hearing you sing "O Holy Night" was the very best part of my Christmas. Your heart was so into it; your voice was so strong and beautiful. You weren't just singing a Christmas hymn, but you were singing directly to the Lord. It touched my heart more deeply than you can imagine. Peace, joy, and love to you, my precious daughter.

Michelle said...

O Holy Night is a hard solo to sing. I wish I could have heard it.

I was hoping to have a Christmas update this morning. I'm dying to know what T made with his own hands.

Tirithien said...

I'll let Bainwen describe it if she wants to. :-) Anything I would say would be too self-serving. ;-)

clew said...

I'd have liked to been there as well :). I promise I wouldn't be distracting. It would all be Naive acting up.

Hope your Christmas weekend was wonderful :)

Bainwen Gilrana said...

It was the oddest thing, that singing. This will probably sound silly to many readers, and I almost hesitate to post it, but it was more as if something quite a bit larger and more incorporeal than I was borrowing my voice for awhile.

That said, whatever borrowed my voice apparently breathes much more deeply than I do on my own, because my diaphragmatic and intercostal muscles felt bruised for the next two days! Bit hard to breathe that way. But today I'm mostly better.