Holiday on the Hill

Due to winter storms we stayed home for Christmas this year. I took this picture of the neighborhood tree at the St Gregory Piazza the day of the Egg Nog Jog, Saturday December 19th. That was the day we were supposed to be heading to W. Virginia to see Nancy and Dan and stay overnight in Lewisburg. The 12" of snow that fell on W Va and VA changed our plans. The big round silver and gold ornaments were personalized fundraisers for the garden club in 2005. Many of these ornaments were destroyed in a big windstorm earlier this month. I assumed ours was one of the crushed ornaments. But on our walk home I saw one of these ornaments laying in Kath Huneman's flower pot and was surprised when I picked it up to see that it was ours! And it is intact. I'm keeping it at home.

Luminary Night was Sunday December 13th.

We missed the Reingdog Parade this year as it was the weekend we were in Bloomington celebrating Christmas. This next picture is Pilgrim Chapel Sunday December 20th. The McBreen Family was the Holy family for this years pageant, last year it was the Milars. New this year was the addition of the "friendly beasts" which were all dogs dressed as cows, camels and even a dove. This was in memory of Shad who died in June and started the tradition of bringing your dog to church. Some people might think this is irreverent but I do not and it is one of the things I love about this church. The dogs even had their names and owner's name as well as role they were playing mentioned in the church program.

The pageant parade. Christmas Eve Candlelight service started at 7 PM. We are lucky to have CCM students play and this night we had an excellent violist, pianist and organist. The acoustics are pretty good in this little chapel and so beautiful at the end when the room was only lit by our candles for the final songs.

This morning we made a fire in the kitchen and had lemon blueberry homemade pancakes.