A Very Christmassy Weekend

The weekend was a very busy one and wonderfully ushered in the Christmas Season.  Saturday was the annual Christmas tea at The Whitney where we served 165 guests. I lost track of how many urns of Mistletoe Kiss tea [a spicy black tea] I made throughout the afternoon, but it was A LOT.   I had hoped to take pictures of the food to share, but it was so busy I didn't get a chance, but this was the menu:  1st course - White Chocolate Cranberry and Blueberry Scones; 2nd course - Mixed fresh berries on top of a cloud of cocoa whipped cream [I sampled this and it was delish!]; 3rd course - Mini Wellingtons with Cognac Cream; Seafood Salad Cup; Chicken-cherry Wonton, Strawberry Cream Cheese Sandwich and classic Egg Salad Sandwich; 4th course:  Carrot Cake, Mini Cream Puff, Bailey's Banana Boat, and homemade Chocolate Truffle.

It's become a tradition to read Tom Hegg's poem, A Cup of Christmas Tea, at our annual Christmas teas and this year my boss asked me to read it at the 11:00 a.m. seating.  Guests assembled in the Great Hall after the second course to hear the poem.  One of the servers took the picture below during the reading.

I was pleased to see tea friend, Amy, and her husband, David, at the 11:00 a.m. seating.  David took a photo of the two of us and Amy sent it to me.  I've invited Amy and her teacher friend and co-worker to my house for tea on December 30th, and am looking forward to their coming.  Amy came bearing gifts which I'll share in another post.

Saturday was my last day of work until January 8th and the reprieve will be nice. Sadly [for The Whitney], my boss is retiring the end of this year, so I said my good bye to him before I left and thanked him for hiring me Sept. 2018 and making my dream job come true.

Sunday morning was "Christmas Sunday" at church and the children's department participated with the worship team.  They were so cute with their bells.

Granddaughters Brianna and Brooke are both home for the holidays so I took their pictures after church and even managed to get their dad with them in one picture.

We came home, ate a quick dinner, then headed back to church for the 5:00 o'clock live nativity followed by a candlelight service at 6:00 p.m.

My hubby built the stable for the church and it was used once while we were worshipping in a school, then went in storage for several years.  He and another man got it out of storage and set it up a couple of weekends ago at our new building, and a big wind storm blew it over.  They reset it and anchored it with straps which were removed yesterday.  After a second wind storm my son went over to check on it and couldn't resist taking the picture below. The moon was shining brightly above the stable, and it reminded him of the star that guided the shepherds and wise men to the Christ child.  

There was a live camel, cow, donkeys, and several barnyard animals for the children to enjoy.

The theater department at Romeo High School provided the students who portrayed Mary and Joseph, shepherds, and wise men.  The music department provided an ensemble to sing carols outside and again later inside at the candlelight service.  Mother Nature provided the dusting of snow.

In between the live nativity and candlelight service there were cookies, hot chocolate, and coffee available inside to help warm everybody up.

Candlelight Service

Granddaughter Brooke took this picture with the cross illuminated behind her candle. It reminded me of two things:  John 8:12 where Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life..." and the little chorus I learned as a child, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...".  It's my daily prayer that the Holy Spirit will enable me to shine brightly for Jesus everyday.

May your Christmas Season be blessed as we celebrate the birth of our wonderful Lord and Savior.