the day after Christmas

Douglass Truth - "Day After Christmas"

i think we all breathe a collective sigh of relief when certain aspects of the holiday have passed...we had a wonderful day yesterday but i can say i am glad *those* aspects are over! now onto the next 10 days of wonderful readings and then back to ordinary time and then Lent!! (i know, julie d - too early to discuss that!)

Yuletide Updates: my employee, michael, received so much more than a Christmas tree this year - my server, L, who went and bought decorations for him had told a couple of people she knew what she was doing because she had to beg off from attending certain functions in order to do things for mike, ended up collecting $350 or so and bought each of his children toys and clothing! molly sacrificed the balance of the shopping i needed to do for the family so we could get each of them toys, so it ended up he had quite an abundance of things for his family at Christmastime, after all. he was so overwhelmed, L said he cried. bless his heart and thank those of you who wanted to contribute via paypal; i think God had it all under control for him, after all...

Christmas Eve Mass: didn't seem as crowded this year; perhaps it is because we actually arrived on time and didn't have to squish in? there were still folks lining the walls, and i think we had the most soft-spoken lector and priest presiding over Mass, considering everyone knew it was the children's Mass and it would be, uhm, noisy...and usually, aren't the readings are geared in *child* language? still the same Scripture verses, but from a different lectionary and from what i listened to, it wasn't the children's version. i think it is important to have readings they can understand, but it may be something handed down that we cannot do that any more?? any practicing Catholics care to enlighten me, i'd be delighted :)

Christmas Cards: i sent some out this year because i was leveled for a couple of weeks with my croup...i received a bunch too and love getting mail that doesn't have a window envelope :) one of the cards i received, however, still has us puzzled -- it was addressed to both myself and my husband, our names spelled correctly (if you know my last name, you would know that is a challenge to say, let along spell!) the handwriting on the front differed from the writing on the back with the return address...the card was addressed to me alone, my name spelled correctly (again, with an *i* and not a *y*) and it contained two Christian bookmarks and the inscription read:

"thank you for all you do for me, you are a wonderful friend!

i (heart symbol) you, love nancy."

isn't that lovely?

thing is, i don't know anyone named nancy that would send me a card like that.

my neighbor is nancy, but she is my neighbor and doesn't live two towns away...i have an acquaintence named nancy who lives in the area of where the card was sent, but i am not her *friend* and don't *do anything* for her, we are simply acquaintences...i did a reverse address look-up on the computer and the name that came up doesn't ring a bell and it said this person is 83 (that is so scary, you can do an address look up and it not only says your name in full, but your ages as well!! what is that about??)

so while we are baffled at the mystery card, i got plenty of mileage from it all weekend. if anyone has any other clues to figure this out, i'd appreciate it - my kids think i should write the person back and say i have no idea who she is, but i don't know about that...

gift exchange: only have a couple of items that need exchanging, other than that, we were peaceful and uneventful, praise God.


tell me how your holidays were...