Christmas Eve

Dear Diary,

It is a warm and rainy Christmas Eve day.  I will not have any problem getting to St. Andrews for mass.  I love the early family mass because the children participate in the service by bringing the animals to the nativity scene in front of the altar.  Being Northern New England, this includes moose, racoon, beaver, black bear and deer.  It is very sweet.

This is a digital collage I made of two photographs from my stay at St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer this past September.  A beautiful stain glass window in the church and a ceramic piece  in the guest house.

I watched a special presentation two nights ago on the origins of the carol Silent Night.  I loved its humble beginnings in a little Austrian town by two unknown men who composed it to be played on a guitar.  No trumpets or swelling organ music, just the guitar and two voices.  Somehow, it epitomizes the true meaning of Christmas for me.

It is also the 100th anniversary of the Christmas Truce of WWI.  The English troops in the trenches heard Silent Night being sung by the German soldiers and the rest, as they say, is history.  It is the simple words of this much beloved carol that reaches the heart most profoundly, "Sleep in heavenly peace..."

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

- Laura Ingalls Wilder