The program featured a brass ensemble, harpist, organist, three other instrumentalists (percussion, guitar, flute), two readers as there were nine Scripture readings throughout the program, handbells, and a choir that included a little over 100 adults and a little less than 50 children. Some songs only featured the adults or only featured the children, and some songs all 150 singers sang together. The church has a massive pipe organ, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My favorite instrumentalist was the harpist. She was AMAZING. It would be hard to pick my favorite song because I really enjoyed the entire program, but I would probably choose "The dream Isaiah saw." There were about 500 in attendance, and we all joined in with singing some of the carols and held candles while we sang Silent Night and Joy to the World. Sometimes the choir sang a beautiful descant for the last verse of the carols the audience sang with the chorale. The chorale rehearsals take place in a different location (farther from our home) in the spring so we are taking that season off. Nadia already said she wants to come back next fall. I am fine with that as long as it won't conflict with rehearsals next fall for Tuck Everlasting (presuming she is selected to join the cast after the auditions).
Yesterday was a very, very full day. We left the house around 8:30 am. We drove in two cars for the first part since Paul and Oliver were not attending the candlelight service last night. My first stop was to return a bag full of items at the library. Then after leaving Paul's car in the parking lot at Aldi, we stopped at the bread outlet as Nadia and Oliver had been asking for bagels for weeks, but I hadn't gotten any due to the price. We bought a LOT of bagels yesterday, so they should be set for awhile. We arrived at the National Civil War Museum at 10:15. Usually we only go to museums we can get into free with our ASTC membership, but I made an exception the last several weeks. We paid to enter a total of three Civil War museums - Richmond, Appomattox, and Harrisburg since that is what we studied this fall in history. I'm very thankful we usually get into museums for free because it isn't cheap to buy five tickets! Yesterday we only had to buy four because they have a family package where you get one free child's admission if you buy two adult and two children tickets. After the museum we drove to a Subway restaurant where my friend, Joyce, met us. Joyce and I have been friends for 23 years, but ever since she moved to Harrisburg in 2000, we haven't seen each other anywhere near as often as we did the first four years we were friends. It had been four years since we had gotten together in person. Our gift card covered all but $2 of our bill, and for our supper we ate food I had packed that morning. Joyce also joined us for the three hour Christmas production in Camp Hill. At the end they had everyone hold a candle so Nadia and Ian held candles in three services over the past two days - yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening, and this afternoon. The program ended a little before 5pm, and Nadia and Ian needed to be at the church in Sunbury at 6:45. It was *supposed* to be a 75 minute drive, but we hit a lot of traffic so they were a few minutes late. They had to change into their performance attire at the church, and somehow Ian dropped his tie along the way. I searched for it but came up empty handed. Someone else found it, but it wasn't returned to Ian until after the end of the concert. Nadia was on the end of the bottom row, but Ian was on the other end of the second row so because there were girls standing in front of him, it wasn't really obvious that he wasn't wearing a tie. He DID wear his tie for the concert this afternoon.
Nadia, Ian, and I got home at 10:00pm last night. We were exhausted and went straight to bed. Paul and Oliver were already in bed. Paul went to bed early because he left for work at 3:20am this morning because he took yesterday off of work to go to Harrisburg. This meant the kids had to leave at 7:55am to go to church with me. I had to wake Ian up this morning. I felt badly doing so since he went to bed an hour later than usual last night, but it couldn't be helped. Paul came home from work while we were at church. He took the kids to the second candlelight service. Paul's parents met them there. In hindsight, we should have left Oliver at home with me because sadly he wasn't well behaved. I was grateful to be able to stay home this afternoon so I could accomplish other tasks such as completing a photobook on Shutterfly. On Thursday Ian put together the 1,000+ piece Star Wars Lego set I had purchased for his birthday. He started the one that my Dad gave him on Friday, but he didn't have time to finish it until this evening. I'm sure he'll be getting more Lego sets next week for Christmas, but for now he's done putting together new sets. Even though Nadia got home at 5:30 from today's candlelight service, she still wanted to go to the youth group meeting at the Methodist church tonight as she typically does. After she ate a very quick meal, I took her to the church. Tomorrow the kids and I are going to stay home sweet home all day long!
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