Sunday, Dec. 5

Up at 7 a.m. on this frigid morning and did a treadmill session and weights exercises after breakfast. Once I was ready for the day, I did this and that until lunchtime.

Mother came over around 10 a.m. and watched a couple of Christmas musical shows, while I uploaded photos to a social network and did other things at my office computer.

Mother heated the leftover soups and barbecue for our lunch. She went home after we'd all eaten, and Hubbie and I relaxed until time to get ready to go to a "Festival of Lessons and Carols" service at a small local church near the college. The church only seats about 200.

The service was at 4 p.m., and even though we arrived around 3:30, most of the limited parking spaces around the church were already taken. But luckily we were able to squeeze in behind another vehicle close to the entrance.

The service included a ten-member flute choir, a college student trumpeter, a student mezzo-soprano, and an organist, who played the church's beautiful Dutch pipe organ. The nine scripture lessons, which began with the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, and ended with the three wise men bearing gifts to the Christ child, were read by flute choir members, college professors, and even the college's president.

The student mezzo-soprano did a wonderful job of singing a different rendition of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." I've not heard that rendition of the song before, but it was beautiful, and I liked it very much.

Of course, the congregation participated, too, in singing "Oh Come All Ye Faithful," and a couple of others.

The service was non-denominational, and several denominations...Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc....participated either as part of the service, or as congregants. Many of the participants and the congregants are friends or acquaintances of ours, of course.

Mother usually goes with us to this event each year, but today, she didn't feel up to it. So when we got back home, I visited her for a few minutes to see her Christmas decorations. Her cat, Snoops, became fascinated with my faux fur coat to the point of grabbing my arm, attempting to crawl up my leg, and gnawing on my boots. It was as though she thought I was a giant animal of some sort. When she laid her ears back and raised her hackles, I knew it was time to leave.

I spent some time tonight with one eye on the TV, and one eye reviewing the lessons I'll need to teach to my Literacy Council student tomorrow night. The lessons are pretty simple, so I only needed to brush up on them a little.

We've arrived at the season of nothing-new-on-TV, so I played a couple of DVD movies. The first one was "Chain Reaction," which we got for free with cereal boxtops. The 1996, PG-13 suspense movie stars Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, and Rachel Weisz. A student machinist gets caught up in government cover-ups, espionage, and murder.

The second movie we watched (one I bought in a $3 bin at a discount store) was the 1999, R-rated thriller film, "Arlington Road," starring Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins. A man finds a child wandering bloody down the road near his home. He takes the boy to the hospital and later discovers he's the son of a neighbor, whom he begins to suspect as a terroist.