A Family Christmas

CIDER
It was Christmas Eve.

Traditionally, my family has always attended a candlelight service, mainly because my dad was a pastor and usually led the event. However, now with a switch in professions – from pastor to missionary - things had become awkward. We had no church that we really enjoyed as a family; so choosing a service that we could all attend and like. . . .well it was proving to be a challenge. This sets up the scene of what was going on 3 days before Christmas Eve:

My sister, who had moved out a year and a half ago under rather painful circumstances had to work Christmas Eve, but still wanted to go to church. So she voted for an 11:00pm service. My father, very accommodating in order to bring her back into the fold, thought it wasn’t such a bad idea. However – the rest of us did.

My brother, John, felt that it was the better part of wisdom to not attend any service at all. While I was inclined to agree with him, I also knew that the idea wouldn’t last long with my parents, so we were forced to disagree.

My mother and brother thought that going to ‘their’ church was a great idea. My brother, Jeff, had friends and a girlfriend who all attended; and my mom, because that was where they usually went.

Somewhere in here my grandparents were to be accommodated. Conservative Baptists, this would need to be taken into consideration as they were going with us, whichever service we chose.

I live with my husband, an hour away from my parents and everyone else involved in this decision. Really, I shouldn’t have much say – but my personality dictates that I have a rather large part in the decision-making process. Separately, I received a call from almost every family member, and weighed each opinion heavily. Then, I picked an entirely different church altogether. This was one that Greg’s (my husband) parents attended off and on, and that was reputedly a nice balance between contemporary and traditional. It had a convenient service time of 7:00pm, and although Presbyterian by background, my grandparents were willing to overlook this shortcoming and attend. Each family member could attend, and the evening was promising to be memorable, if not borderline perfect.

I was only to be correct on one of those assumptions.

We arrived 5 minutes later than the 7:00 time, but we were in luck! Service had not yet begun, and we were still able to get a whole row to ourselves. We waited, and waited, and at 7:20, I was mildly concerned. Perusing the bulletin, my mind started turning. I was sure that the service started at 7:00, and wasn’t the pastor’s name Bob something? Not this Stewart that was printed here. Hmmm. A cold bolt shot through me at the same time realization struck. This was not the service! This was an entirely different church! And (as a side observation) no one here was under 65! At that same time, my husband leaned over. Apparently he and Jeff were doing some calculating on the 4-page program/book and they estimated that with the 16 carols, 1 story-telling, 1 message, and then the candle-lighting – we were in for at least a 3 hour service. The family turned questioningly to me. What was there to say?! I smiled reassuringly, much more confidently than I felt – explained that I believed us to be at the wrong service, but that I’m sure it was going to be great. Look at all the old-fashioned carols that we hadn’t sung in ages! Even a few that I had never heard of before. This seemed a mistake, but in truth we were in for quite a treat.

Yep.

We sang EACH verse of EACH carol – 7 verses of “We Three Kings”, 5 verses of “O Holy Night”, and 6 verses of “Silent Night” just to name a few. Then, it was storytelling for the children. Here I was sure I would be saved.

Once all two children shuffled up to the front (awwww, how cute); the assistant pastor told an odd tale of a bunny, who froze to death in a blizzard, but saved a field mouse. Using the word ‘carcass’ a number of times, he then said that there was a wolf that looked at the dead rabbit for a day, and then left. It was entirely bizarre, and I sunk lower in my seat as the piercing gaze of my family continued to turn to me. A few more 10-verse Christmas carols later, the sermon began. And dragged on for quite some time. We needed to go. Already 2 ½ hours had passed, and the troops were fidgety. My father made an executive decision that surpassed hundreds of years of family protocol. We were going to leave early.

The word was passed down the line. At the prayer before the candle-lighting, we were going to make our big break. No, wait – new message – we would leave at the prayer at the end of this sermon – there were 3 more carols between here and the candle-lighting bit – none of us would last that long. Mercifully, the prayer came 10 minutes later, and the pastor, with this aptitude towards droning on and on, gave us plenty of time to empty the row. Still, not everyone was praying. Some of the elderly ladies appeared to be sentencing us to hell with their piercing gazes. The already-empty church was visibly even more empty with our party of 9 gone, but we felt no remorse. Slipping, and sliding as we hurried to the cars, giggles and snorts started escaping some of the better-tempered of the group. Some, were not quite yet ready to forgive, but were willing to admit that it was already funny.

Once home, we changed into our jammies and convened in the kitchen to make the Christmas Eve toast right before dinner. My grandmother, very proper and serious, offered to make it, and we all waited to hear her speak eloquently of the past and future year. Somberly she raised her glass, and looked at each one of her children/grandchildren meaningfully. She took a deep breath and proclaimed:

“To The Great Escape!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.