Unto Us A Child Is Born

We ushered in Christmas Day 2004 with 200 other people this year. Margaret and I participated in three Christmas Eve services at St Mark at 500, 730 and 1100PM totalling about 600 people and finished up the last service about 1230AM Christmas morning. It was great time with singing, candles and the hope and expectation of good things to come.

Sleeping in on Christmas morn, our expectation of Christmas joy was not disappointed and around 830am James called from a village about 75 miles north of Calcutta on the Ganges River. James delighted us with wonderful tales of seeing villages and life along the Ganges River over the 400 or so miles that he has already covered.
Words cannot describe the joy and yes relief that Margaret and I felt from this phone call and it set the tone of pure rejoicing for the rest of the day.
As a further update to James location and the recent disaster in that part of the world: James is alive and well – read it all on http://whatyoumakeofit.blogspot.com.
The rest of the day was slow and relaxed as we brewed a pot of good coffee (thank you Tracy for upgrading our coffee selections) and opening a couple of gifts that we had been given by congregation members and a couple we had gotten each other. Phone conversations with Tracy and Nick in North Carolina and Betsy and Steve Baker in South Carolina rounded out our sense of family ‘presence’. Margaret baked a couple of lemon pies and later in the day we went over to Pastor Erdo’s home to join with them for a family Christmas day dinner. Without trying to, we seem to have collected a wonderful batch of Yorktown related Christmas tree decorations that will serve as a reminder of this year.

As I sit here now at St Mark in between Sunday morning services on the 26th, the snow is gently falling, completing the visual joy to go along with the joy we have and wish to all reading this posting, for all the coming year.