No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

My favorite part of Christmas has always been Christmas Eve. I love the anticipation in leaving a note for Santa along with a plate of cookies and a mug of milk. I love hanging the stockings over the fireplace, and placing the presents under the tree. And I love that it's the same year after year like a dance you used to know and almost forgot you loved. And, step number one of that dance for me has always been - Go To Church.

Yes, I'll admit I'm not particularly religious, and yes, Christmas Eve is usually the only day of the year I go to church, but really, I love the children's mass. You know the one that starts at 4pm where the little kids at the church's school put on the nativity play? I am such a sucker for the nativity play! My eyes even get a little misty when little 10 year old Joseph and 7 year old Mary walk down the aisle asking for room at the inn. They are so serious and so cute in their modified bed sheets and sandals!! I can't stay away, I am compelled to attend every year.

This year, we thought we'd try a new church closer to our final evening destination, my parent's house in San Jose. We went to St. Joseph's Catholic Church which is associated with Mission San Jose. It's a huge church that holds a ton of people. As we sat through the mass I began thinking how much I've missed this, that I really enjoy church. I was even think maybe I should think about coming more often....then it came to the communion part.

Brian and I decided we would go up and receive communion. Now many might say from a strict Catholic perspective that we really shouldn't since we only attend church once a year, and haven't been to confession since - I don't even know how long, but it's Christmas and it's easier for everyone not to have to step over us on their way up and I really haven't been doing a lot of sinning in years, and Jesus is a forgiving guy anyway and he won't mind.....I'm thinking it's going to be ok.

Anyway, since you're probably not Catholic I'll explain how communion is supposed to work. You walk up to the priest (Eucharistic minister if there aren't enough priests). He says "Body of Christ?" like a question. In response you say. "Amen." The priest puts the little wafer in your hand. You eat it, then cross yourself. Done. Easy. And being raised REALLY Catholic I can tell you that I not only know this drill, I could probably teach Holy Communion Sunday School. 9 years of CCD would make anyone a pro.

But, when I walked up to the Eucharistic minister on Christmas eve he did not say "Body of Christ?" like he was supposed to. He said, "Are you Catholic?" in what I'm going to call an accusatory way. At this point, a couple hundred smart ass responses pored through my brain...

"No, I'm just really hungry and those wafers look really tasty."
"I sooo am. Just quiz me!"
"No, I just had an hour to kill before dinner."
"How DID you guess?"
"Yes I am. Are you?"
"No, I'm Buddhist, but I come every year for the incense. Hmmm, smells almost like ganja!"

But, I was able to bite all my nasty comments back and respond with a dumbfounded, " Yyyeess." At which point the rest proceeded as normal. Once back at the pew, I watched the minister had out the rest of his little wafers. Shoot! it's been a year since I've been to church, maybe the drill has changed, but no. He did not ask anyone else. In fact Brian's dad has been a Eucharistic minister for years and neither has he asked anyone this, nor has he heard of anyone every asking this at mass.

Now if your Catholic you already know that the churches are only really full on Christmas and Easter. I was not the only person visiting. Was I wearing some kind of sign? Maybe I've got "smote with lighting now!" tattooed across my forehead. If you were a church trying to welcome new people who might not often attend regularly, don't you think you might try to make them feel welcome and not like they were trying to sneak in to someone else's family reunion??

Drat! The rest of Christmas Eve was fantastic and fun, but church did not bring with it's usual comfort. It made me feel set apart from something special and it made me a little sad.

Evil Cookies et. al.

So, originally I was going to describe in full gory detail the evilest cookie to emerge from this year's round of holiday cookie exchange parties. I had it all planned out. The soft chocolate chip cookie batter baked to perfection surrounding not chocolate chips, but one perfectly centered thin mint girl scout cookie. But wait, not evil enough. Damn straight! But what could elevate the cookie within a cookie to truly evil status?? A whole miniature heath bar atop each individual cookie. No really. It sounds impossible, but there it was, one delicious cookie. I even took pictures to include in my blog, but....

A couple of weeks ago I sat on my digital camera and broke the viewing screen. I can still look through the little view finder window at the top of the camera, and I can still take pictures, but just like with a pre-digital or disposable camera, I have no idea what my shots look like until I download. The end result being, the Christmas card photos I ordered online - totally blurry, Drew's picture with Santa - eyes closed, and my cookie picture - Voila!And here I was thinking I might finally be able to kick my amateur food porn career "up a notch" (if you know what I mean.) And if you could only see this cookie in all it's perfectly golden, chewy, crunchy, nutty, sweet glory, you'd understand it has achieved a level of evil one step beyond the Satan Bar which up until this point reigned as the almighty evil for over a decade. Especially when you replace the butterscotch chips with Skor candy pieces. Yum!

And my camera....my poor poor camera! I planned to ask for a new one for Christmas, but then well.....I washed my cell phone in the clothes washer. Yeah, the new one I got just a few months ago, and opted not to go with the damage insurance, and signed a two year contract, which allowed me to purchase the phone for only $10, which will cost LOTS more than that to replace. Sorry honey! At least I have yet to accidentally toast my ipod. Although if it makes it through to January I'll consider it a mini Christmas miracle.

Come and trim my Christmas tree...

Tis' the season. We'll hang Christmas lights on our house. We'll go to the neighborhood tree lighting to have cookies and hot cocoa with Santa and all our school friends. We'll head over to the Thomas' for our annual Christmas lights walk and cookie exchange. We'll watch holiday piano recitals and choral presentations. We'll shop and wrap and address and stamp, and while all this bustle is tons of fun, my favorite part of Christmas each year is the trimming of our Christmas tree. Why? Let me just show you a couple of my favorite ornaments.
This is the little angel that my mother-in-law made for me out of the leftover sash material of the flower girl dress she made for my wedding. Look, the angel even has my hair.

This is the creepy Q-Pee doll elf that Brian hides in our tree each year for the rest of the family to find. He's posable and has wicked-witch-of-the-east green and white striped stockings. As you can tell, he's usually placed really close to the trunk and each year I try to see that he remains in the tree as we take it out to recycle, but alas, the sneaky elf always seems to end up back in the ornament box.

This is Brian's orange burlap tree stocking. And that's not felt glued on top, it cotton most likely cut from old shirts and dresses. Someone spent a lot of time on this one. Brian always hangs this ornament front and center on our tree saying, "This way Santa will see it. I'm sure Santa will fill my tree stocking this year." But honestly Santa always forgets. I mean really, you have to be a good boy ALL year to get your tree stocking filled. And anyway, I don't recall him ever looking inside it Christmas morning either. For all we know there is an old chocolate coin rotting in there from 1974.
And the last I'd like to share with you today, the spooky eyeball. I'm not sure where this came from or why it's on the tree, but it sure does look festive staring out from the pine needles. It's blue iris provides such a nice color contrast to the red plastic faux felt bows. Ahhh, isn't our tree bootiful!