Christmas Eve in the City . . .

Over the weekend, my sister Cathy drove from OR to our dad's farm in ND to spend Christmastime with family. Last night she made the trip to our home in Dickinson, and we'll all go together to Dad's tomorrow for a Christmas Day celebration. In the meantime, she has been getting in on a lot of Advent devotions, church, eating, gift opening, and visiting while here with us! It's been good to have her here.

Today we hosted Cathy, Susan's dad Roger, her brother Jerrett, and her grandma Laura at our house for dinner: ham, potatoes au gratin, green beans almondine, etc. There was time afterward to open a few presents (those to the girls from Grandpa and Uncle Jerrett) before heading off to church in the afternoon. The theme of the Advent devotions that we've been using each evening is "Unexpected and Mysterious," the title of a hymn written by Jeannette Lindholm. It has a beautiful melody and meaningful lyrics, and we haven't sung it in church during Advent; so when invited by the pastors to provide "special music" for one of the Christmastime services, we offered to sing that song at the 3:00 P.M. service today. Actually, the three girls sang and I played the piano with Suzanna's joining me on the piano for the final verse, playing the melody while I switched to a countermelody accompaniment. They did a fine job, and one of the pastors said he liked the song so much that he's going to be sure to have the congregation sing it during Advent next year.

"Unexpected and Mysterious," #258 in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal

When we got home, we got into comfy clothes, opened more gifts, ate more food, and shared in Advent devotions with Cathy. After the girls were tucked into bed to await St. Nicholas' arrival, I blended some tasty mudslides for the adults to enjoy as we visited some more. Tomorrow: gifts from Santa Claus (if the girls have been nice, that is--we'll see how Santa judges them) and then off to the farm for Christmas dinner with Dad and Beverly!

Hillary reads from the Bible during Advent devotions.

Abigail takes a turn reading from the Bible.

Suzanna reads from the Advent devotions while Hillary cuddles with Daddy and Cathy looks on (those are her plaid legs attached to the pink sweatshirt in the blue chair).