I'm off to a bit of a slow start for celebrating Christmas Eve, I woke up early with a headache, ache breakfast and fell back asleep.  Hopefully it just means more energy for tonight!

I hope you all find some joy & love today, regardless of how you celebrate (or not)!

I love it when kids ask questions which confound adults. Our Sunday School leader approached me after Christmas with a good question one of our young people asked in Sunday School. “If Jesus were alive today, how old would he be?” There was some argument in the group over whether Jesus would be 2013 years of age or not. Fortunately, the Sunday School leader said she would check it out and come back with an answer. And the answer is, “It depends.” No one, with any certainly, can give a definitive date for the birth of Jesus, no matter if we celebrate it on December 25 every year.

When do you take your Christmas Tree Down? Is it the same time every year?

I like to take mine down between Xmas and New Years. I begin to feel hemmed in.

What about you?

On Sunday, I am service leader at my UU fellowship, working with the minister on a service about Solstice and Christmas. I have long wanted to talk about Christmas and the traditional Nativity story in the context of my UU'ism so for my part of the service, I am offering the following reflection. The reflection in our service is an opportunity for the service leader to offer their own thoughts on the theme of the service.

I am!

I wrote a super long post and decided not to bother putting it out there.

I'm just tired and the prep is exhausting.  Throw in some extra cautions I need to food allergies and some well-intentioned but not fully aware inlaws and there's added stress I just don't need right now.

Christmas will be good, but the work to have it all ready to go isn't.  As it is, things won't be done that I'll miss.

I found this video, done by the members of a local United Church and a local amateur video club a few years ago, and I thought I would share it as I think it is really well done:

Time to create a soundtrack for Wondercafe's Christmas. I'm putting this in Social this year since it seems a bit livelier than Pop Culture. What are your favorite Christmas/holiday/winter songs or recordings? Anything new for this holiday season catch your eye/ear? Or just post a song of the season that you like.

My current fave band, Walk Off the Earth, released their Christmas single for 2013 this week and I love it. Nice, if somewhat different, rendition of a holiday chestnut.

Hi folks!

It's that time of year again - time for Secret Santas! Here's how it works: you send, via private message me your name and your address and I will randomly select someone to send you a gift and someone else for you to send something to. In that private message, I also recommend sending in some ideas of things that you are interested in (hobbies, sports teams, etc.). It's not about spending a lot of money. Let's limit the price of the gift to $10 (not including postage). 

Easter is a more important occasion in the Church than is Christmas. Why did the Church not pick up on this and if the church had, maybe the secular world would.

But then we would have Easter Trees, Easter Presents, Easter stocking hung on the air conditioner with care hoping the Easter Bunny would be there.

How do we as church goers change the attitude between Christmas and Easter? Or is it a non-issue?