God Bless Us Everyone...

I have to say that I went to one of the nicest Christmas masses I had been to in a long time.
I consider myself more spiritual than religious, but I believe that it's important for my son to have religion until that time where he is old enough to decide for himself.

That being said, we attended the children's mass at All Saints in the early evening on Christmas Eve along with my husband's parents. Coming from a french catholic background, it was very different than attending midnight mass, but it was so lovely.

First, I have to say there was alot of singing...which I particularily liked since it was more modern than normal, many Christmas carols (of a more holier nature) were sung - What Child is This being one of my favorites. The minister (reverend, priest...) had all the children come up to the front of the church after the gospel. He had decorated the Christmas tree earlier in the day and atop the tree was a sad looking little bow. He had a bag in his hand as he sat down on the riser to chat with the children and asked them some of the things they had on their trees at home. Many answered lights, candy canes (which was Paden's personal favorite), balls, santas...

He asked them for help because he had a few things in the bag that he thought would be better at the top of the tree rather than the sad little bow and implored the children to help decide what would be best...he proceeded to pull the first item out of the bag - a cross country ski boot, which garnered much laughter from the tots. The minister rationalized that the ski boot was a winter item, snow, snow boot (you get the idea)...I think he had a sentimental attachment to it, but since the children wanted to see what else was in the bag, the next item pulled was an empty pepsi bottle - to which he confessed that he had no idea why he thought that might be a good idea for the top of the tree - recycling and being a good person I think was his rationale...
Next item up was a tape dispenser to which the children thought was quite funny - the explanation was that it was tape, and God tapes ourselves to him...LOL, much laughter and groaning ensued...but wait!!! there was one item left, he said, as he pulled out a lovely little angel from the bag....ahhhhhh said the children, that's more like it!!! The minister put it out to a vote, with the ski boot coming in a close second to the angel.

More singing, shaking of hands, communion and blessings followed. On my way out I informed the minister that I thought his sermon was brilliant and that I secretly had been pulling for the ski boot to win...to which he chuckled and agreed.