7 Very Quick Takes

1. Are your Christmas preparations stressing you? First, read this troparion of Christmas and pray about the true meaning of the holiday:

Your birth, O Christ our God

Has shed upon the world the light of knowledge;

For through it, those who worship the stars

Have learned from a star to worship You, the Sun of Justice

And to recognize You as the Orient From On High.

Glory be to You, O Lord

Then, click on this link and listen to the Nuns of Chester chant an Advent hymn. Don't you feel calmer?

2. Baby Girl refused to wear her homemade sister-matching Christmas kitty skirt (Girl #1 got a fourth tier on her Christmas dogs skirt), but deigned to wear a ballerina skirt I made her.

3. For a completely different but equally beautiful song, click here and listen to a Arabic Byzantine Christmas Hymn. The theology-rich lyrics should be read and prayed.

4. Baby Girl finally stopped pouting and started dancing in her skirt

5. Bloggers should not be sensitive types. that. is. all.
6. from last year...I still enjoy these (& before someone gets upset, the cartoonist is making fun of commercialized Santa, not Saint Nicholas):

7. I wonder how someone got priest-husband's cell phone number. It's in our bulletin, but these are strangers. He is off to anoint a person in a nursing home. Yes, it is after 10:00 PM and he got home at 8 after working since 7:30. I guess no one else was available. I would have chauffeured him as he is exhausted from a long day's work, but I don't want to leave the children sleeping in the house alone.