Emmanuel

This Christmas seems a little darker than most.

Perhaps it’s just a part of growing older — when you’re a child, Christmas is full of mystery and presents and laughter and presents. Thank God my childhood was a happy one, and so Christmas was a happy day in the middle of a happy life.

As you grow older, your eyes are opened to the fact that not everyone has happy childhoods and not everyone has happy lives. Christmas isn’t always a happy day in the midst of a happy life.

But this doesn’t make Christmas less joyful — or at least it shouldn’t — because joy is not an emotion or a warm fuzzy feeling. That is why we all still lit that pink candle on Gaudete Sunday, a Sunday of joy, despite being a nation in shock and mourning. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, the rejoicing that occurs not because happy things are happening in our lives, but the rejoicing because God exists and, if we’re in the state of grace, dwells within us. We rejoice because The Good exists and we possess it in our souls.

This Christmas, I have dear friends who are suffering. Several are away from their families for Christmas; one has to work the entire day; one is suffering from abuse and depression; one has a son in Afghanistan. There are Christians suffering under occupation, nations ready for war, and our own country on the brink of financial crisis. There are people suffering under debilitating illnesses and cancer. There are those who have no physical homes to go to, those who have no family, those who don’t even believe in the Christ child. And there are families reeling from the loss of the dearest present God has ever given them: their child, their mother, their sister, their brother, because of a lost soul who didn’t value his own life or those innocent lives at Sandy Hook.

Into this darkness, the Christ child comes: regardless of who believes in Him, who listens to Him, or who recognizes Him.

“The Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.”
(Isaiah 7:14)

This prophecy of Isaiah, dating back to 733 BC, proclaims that the Messiah will be born to a virgin. But God, through the prophet, tells us something else very specific about this Messiah: that he will be called “Emmanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)

Emmanuel: God with us.

Pope Benedict points out, “Even though Jesus is not actually named Emmanuel, nevertheless He is Emmanuel, as the entire history of the Gospels seeks to demonstrate. This man — they tell us– in His very person is God’s being-with-men.”

Into this dark world, God has come, and He has come in a way He has never come before — He has entered time and space in order to be with us.

He comes not to take us from this dark world, but to dwell in it with us.

When St. Joseph learns of his mission- to take Jesus into his home- he learns of Jesus’ mission too: “you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins.” (Mt 1:21). What does it mean to save us from our sins? Pope Benedict points out that, like the healing of the paralytic lowered through the roof, this saving of our sins might be disappointing at first — “The promising of forgiveness of sins seems both too little and too much: too much, because it trespasses upon God’s exclusive sphere; too little, because there seems to be no thought of Israel’s concrete suffering or its true need for salvation.”

Perhaps the families in Newtown, or each of us individually, could say the same thing– where is God in this darkness? Why has He come, if we are still suffering? Or has He even come?

“Man is a relational being,” the Pope continues. “And if his first, fundamental relationship is disturbed — his relationship with God — then nothing else can be truly in order. This is where the priority lies in Jesus’ message and ministry: before all else, He wants to point man toward the essence of his malady, and to show him — if you are not truly healed there, then however many good things you may find, you are not truly healed. In this sense, the explanation of Jesus’ name that was offered to Joseph in his dream already contains a fundamental clarification of how man’s salvation has to be understood and hence what the Saviour’s essential task must be.”

This is the light of Christmas — not that there is no longer darkness, but that the light has come to join us in the darkness to save us from ourselves.

Georges de la Tour’s meditative “The Newborn,” reminds us that this was the only baby born in this world in order to die. Other children come to live; He came to die. The swaddling clothes were a prefigurement of the shroud, the wood of the cradle an anticipation of the wood of the cross.

This mission of Emmanuel is prefigured in the famous Old Testament story of Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael in the third chapter of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar throws the men in the fire because they will not worship his gods. The men tell the king, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.” The men are delivered– but how? The king sees not three men in the fire, but four — and the fourth’s appearance “is like a son of the gods.”

God could have yanked those men out of the fire. But He doesn’t. Instead He joins them in the fire.

He could deliver us from all suffering – and He does – not by taking it away, but by joining us.

In the Incarnation, God takes on human flesh so that He can suffer. As God, He is immutable — unchangeable — and perfect, and cannot suffer deprivation. And so He takes a complete human nature to Himself, in order that He may suffer with us.

That is the mystery of Christmas. Not that our God has come to wipe away our tears, but to weep with us.

If this Christmas seems darker than most, embrace the light of the Christ child. He knows your needs better than you do; in the darkness, He is already there waiting for you.

a little visitor

I have a new Christmas tradition!  I may not have kids, but that doesn’t stop me from creating little traditions to pass on someday.

My dad gave me this little elephant for Christmas.  We have a running joke in our family when Dad opens presents.  He usually shakes them, turns them around in his hands, and says crazy things like, “Is it an elephant?”  (the smaller the box, the more likely he’ll do it)

On Christmas morning, Mom and Dad and I opened presents after breakfast.  There was a little box for me that Dad set aside, saying I had to wait to open it until the Watsons arrived later that day.  I was pretty clueless about what it might be, but his insistence that I wait had me pretty intrigued.

When the Watsons came later that day, we opened presents with each other before dinner.  I forget what Dad said as I started to open the little box, but it made everyone start to make sarcastic guesses about what it might be.

I unwrapped it… and found a little box… and in the little box…

Was an elephant!

When I returned to my apartment and unpacked, the little elephant got a primo place in front of the Christ child.  A few days later, admiring the little guy, I decided he would be packed up with my Nativity and each year would join the sheep, cow, and donkey in worshiping the newborn King.

Happy Feast of Epiphany!

On a side note, today is the anniversary of my baptism!  (28 years ago, January 8th was the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord)  And today my godson, Casey Eugene, became a little Catholic in Buffalo, NY.  I’m sad I couldn’t be there for his Baptism, but it makes me smile that he joins the Church the same day I did.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It’s 4:32 EST, and I’m about to head to bed.  I’ve just returned from the traditional post-Midnight Mass party, and I stayed a bit later this year knowing that there will be no small children waking me up early tomorrow.  The party consists of visiting with old friends (one of which I hadn’t seen in three or four years) and caroling on the front porch until the police come.  Well, they didn’t come this year, nor did the newspaper boy.  But the caroling was still beautiful — you can’t beat caroling four-part harmony at 3:45am.

Midnight Mass was beautiful, as it always is.  It’s one of my favorite liturgies of the year, just behind Holy Thursday.  There’s something about that burst of “O Come All Ye Faithful” with the trumpet as the servers begin to walk up the aisle that gets me every time.

It’s strange that it’s just Mom, Dad, and I tomorrow morning — it’s not the first time, but that doesn’t make it less strange. Christmas isn’t quite the same without the little people making it a bit more magical.  But I know that everyone has to do what is best for their family on Christmas, so while the heart is heavy, it’s also an understanding heart. : )  It will be good to see my brother and his family by dinner time.

I hope everyone has a beautiful feast!  May the Christ child bless you abundantly!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

“Formerly, people had spoken of God and formed human images of him in all sorts of different ways. God himself had spoken in many and various ways to mankind. But now something new has happened: he has appeared. He has revealed himself. He has emerged from the inaccessible light in which he dwells. He himself has come into our midst. This was the great joy of Christmas for the early Church: God has appeared. No longer is he merely an idea, no longer do we have to form a picture of him on the basis of mere words… The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed: this is the new, consoling certainty that is granted to us at Christmas.” -Pope Benedict XVI, Midnight Mass, 2011

 

Christmas Preparations

Sorry I’ve been away.  My blog has suffered because I’ve been engaged in real communication, both face-to-face and written correspondence in the form of Christmas cards.  I’ve also been engaged in Advent baking, Advent cleaning, Advent decorating, and Advent socializing.

Let’s take a trip through the last few weeks in the form of pictures.  (Don’t fret, I haven’t forgotten that I left you smack dab in the middle of my trip to Rome.  It’s just that when I have ten minutes to blog, it’s easier to post a bunch of pictures than to wax eloquently about an incredible experience.)

I had the day off on December 8th, so I spent the day finishing up Christmas shopping and then cleaning my apartment.  It would be embarrassing to admit that there were still boxes in my bedroom that needed to be unpacked from my move, so I won’t admit it.   But it was very, very productive day.  I went down to my storage closet and brought up all my Christmas decorations and started to decorate by the evening, but then it was time to go eat tiramisu and drink red wine to celebrate my friend Manda’s birthday.  So I finished up a few days later.

Here’s my tree, a shot of the shepherds up on the bookshelf, watching their sheep and waiting for Christmas, and then a new little thing I did in the window between my kitchen and living room.  You can’t really tell, but those are little red and green jingle bells hanging from sprigs of berries.

The following week I had a lovely birthday.  It included a trip to the Grilled Cheeserie food truck for lunch with friends, dinner with friends, and The Bishop’s Wife (a lovely movie if you haven’t seen it!) with friends.

I didn’t take pictures of my lovely friends, but I did take a picture of the lovely cocktail Laura made us while we watched The Bishop’s Wife.  (She also made a peanut butter pie that was amazing.)

I also took a picture of the fabulous cookies my friend Liza made for me.  Nutella sandwich cookies.  That recipe clearly had my name written all over it.  (I’m beginning to worry about myself.  I only take pictures of food and drink.)

A few days later was our office Christmas party.  I’m sure many people groan about their office Christmas party, but I was really looking forward to ours.  We’ve never really had an official Christmas party — the typical dress-up affair where you bring your spouse and drink wine and mingle.  We’ve had luncheons, and I guess there was an unofficial party a few years back, but no one really remembers a time when we had the classic office party.

I brought it up to our president at one point, and she ran with it.  She put me in charge and told me to have at it.

I think there was some doubt in the planning stages amongst some of my coworkers, but we didn’t let that bother us. My friend Jennie and I went to a local hotel to see if they could help.  They worked hard to keep us under budget, and the Sisters gave the okay.   Jennie designed beautiful invitations, I helped put them together, and suddenly, people began to look forward to the shindig.  The plan was to have a Holy Hour at 5, then head to the hotel for heavy hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

I really wanted it to be a dressy affair, but all I could do was hope the beauty of the invitation conveyed that to people.  It’s hard to begin a tradition (although looking back at my time in college, I seem to have a knack for it…) because you don’t have much to work with and you want to start things off right.

Not to be prideful, but I think this tradition started off right.

First of all, we had a macaroni and cheese bar.  Who doesn’t like a macaroni and cheese bar?!  When Jennie and I met with the hotel and heard that was a menu possibility, I think that was the deciding factor for the hotel.  At least it was for me.  And it didn’t disappoint.

photo courtesy of M.Koshute

Seriously, how fun is that?  Macaroni and cheese in martini glasses?  It was a hit.

We also had butler-passed wassail for the first hour.  Also a hit.  At least with me.

It was such a lovely evening.  I think most everyone appreciated the time at the end of the semester to wind down, chat with coworkers, meet spouses, exchange presents with “Advent Angels” (that’s a future post in and of itself) and pose for pictures in front of the Christmas tree.  In some ways, we were back in 8th grade.  But that’s besides the point.

(I’ve asked none of these people for permission to post the following pictures.  I hope they don’t sue me.)

photo courtesy of P.Downey

Those are the awesome people who work in the same trailer building as I do.  Some may accuse us of being the cool kids on campus.  They would be correct.

photo courtesy of P. Downey

Aren’t our fascinators fantastic?  Yeah, in all honesty, it wasn’t the macaroni and cheese bar that made the party.  It was our fascinators.

Liza and I made them the night before.  (Maria just wanted a single flower.  I know- it’s hard to believe someone wouldn’t want feathers on their head, right?  I don’t understand it either.)  You can’t really get the full effect of them in this picture (and no, the lights are the chandelier in the room, they are not attached to my head)   Not only was it fun to create them, it made for hilarious quotes such as, “I’m not hot-gluing your head” (Liza to Joannie) and “Go big or go home” (Joannie to Liza) or “I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more feathers!”  (Liza making fun of Joannie wanting more feathers)

We may have gotten some funny looks, but I think secretly everyone wanted one of their own.

The next day I recovered from the party and spent the day listening to Christmas music (I had made a playlist for the party that was 9 hours long.  So I had plenty to listen to…) and baking holiday treats.  These were the highpoint:

Tiramisu cookie balls.  I won’t show you the low point (chocolate peppermint cookies that were a bust).  But after a day and a half of baking and making treats, I had enough to fill little bags for my friends!

Yesterday afternoon was spent drinking tea and watching Miracle on 34th Street (don’t worry, Dad, the old one) with my friends.  Now the Advent festivities continue, as we continue to prepare for Christmas by watching MORE Christmas movies.  Tonight– It’s a Wonderful Life — on the big screen!

 

Busy Times

The next week is going to be a busy one.  I’m afraid I’ve over-committed myself, partly because I forget that most of the things I agree to require some amount of preparation.  If you’re busy every night, when do you prepare for what you have to do the next night?

Tonight I’m having a little Gaudete Sunday party.  It conflicts with about three other parties, so I’m not expecting a large crowd.  But regardless of how few people are coming, I still need to make food and finish decorating.  Shockingly, I actually made a prudent decision and cancelled one of the things that I was going to do today, partly because if I’m not home today, who’s going to cook the food for tonight?

Did that mean I stayed in last night?  Nope.  My friend Lori was finished with finals, so we went out to celebrate.

She had been telling me about this wonderful Irish pub for the last few months — and it didn’t disappoint.  The owner (above,  playing the bouzouki, on the right) was really nice and is even open to us hosting Theology on Tap there in the future.  Yippee!

It took me back about six or seven years, to a place where Friday nights were synonymous with Irish music.  It was good to sing along with old favorites — South Australia, Whiskey in the Jar, and even Fairytale of New York.  Even though I couldn’t really spare the time, I’m glad I took the night off and enjoyed time with good friends.   The cookies I need to bake for Monday, the RCIA lesson I need to prepare for Thursday, and the Christmas cards I need to write (but I have until January 6th for that… right?) can wait for another night.

Then it was up early this morning for Mass.  Any other day I would have probably shut off the alarm and rolled back over, but I’m the middle of a novena of Holy Communions.  Each year I do the novena for my birthday, as a way to prepare for the next year- to thank God for His abundant blessings and to ask Him to continue to prepare me to be His instrument in this world, to accomplish whatever He wants to accomplish through me.

This is a busy time of year, but hopefully we can all find time to prepare our hearts for what really matters during these weeks — the coming of Christ, both praising and thanking Him for his coming into this world 2000 years ago and making sure we’re ready for when He comes again.

With that, I’m off to make some soup and decorate my Christmas tree.

Rome updates will continue!

If you need Christmas cards…

… I’d highly recommend these awesome ones:

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(This is not a paid advertisement for GeorgiePie. )

in the kitchen

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas.  I think I can honestly say that the days of Christmas this year were some of the best I can remember — all the nieces and nephews were hilarious and played together so well, we had lots of time to visit and just be together, Midnight Mass was gorgeous, and it was just darn good to be home.  I was pleased with all the presents I had gotten for people, too, which always makes me happy.

And I got a bunch of great stuff.  As much as we’d all like to admit we only find pleasure in giving — and I do find great pleasure in it (I love trying to find the perfect present) — we all have to admit we find pleasure in getting, too!

This Christmas seemed to have a theme.  Besides getting books and other great things, I got a lot of things for the kitchen.

I found this very exciting.  For some reason, I have a hard time spending money on things for the kitchen.  I’ve had horrible knives for years (I could barely cut through the skin on a tomato) and yet couldn’t rationalize spending money on a single nice knife.  I’m not really sure why.  But my mom took the huge hint at Thanksgiving and I found Wusthof knives under the tree!  Yay!  They complement the amazing orange knife that my sister got me for my birthday!  woo woo!

Something else that joins good knives on the list kitchen must-haves is a microplane zester. Thanks to my sister, I can cross that off my list too!  Woo hoo!  And my brother and sister-in-law surprised me with an ice cream maker… a bright orange one, of course!  So the blog will soon be dotted with entries chronicling my efforts to make amazing ice cream while simultaneously trying to not gain fifty pounds before fitting into a bridesmaid dress in May.

Right now, my kitchen smells deliciously of baked bread.  My friend Mary told me about this: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day while I was home for Christmas.  While I knew I could trust her — and she had both pictures and a happy husband to back up her claims — it still seemed too good to be true.  Well, Mom and I tried it that evening, and it was true — great bread without kneading or doing really much of anything.  While we’ve just made the master recipe’s basic loaf, I’m thinking about getting the book and trying the other variations.  Of course, there’s that bridesmaid dress and I probably don’t need more bread…

Keep enjoying Christmas, everyone!

Merry Christmas!

 

O great mystery and wonderful sacrament:
that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!

 

Gaudete Sunday

Today is the day my family traditionally decorated for Christmas.  While I was planning on decorating today, I decided to wait a few days until I find out what needs to happen to my apartment after my adventure yesterday.

The apartment above me flooded last night.  I came home from a hockey game to hear the dreaded sound of water dripping onto saturated carpet.  I walked into my bedroom to find water coming out of my ceiling vents and out of the light fixture in my bathroom.

The maintenance man took one look at it and practically dashed upstairs.  We heard him walk in and walk right to the back of the apartment.  He soon returned with the words, “The problem is solved.  We’re exacuating the apartment upstairs.”

Hm.

They’re going to contact me tomorrow, but I have a feeling they’ll at least be replacing the carpet.  The dripping stopped sometime in the middle of the night; thank goodness Mom left her sound machine here last time she stayed, so I could muffle the multiple “drip drip drip into a bucket” sounds as I fell asleep.

I thank God that:

1) I returned to my apartment last night and caught it before it was a disaster

2) None of my personal property was damaged

On to happier things!  Like a country Christmas…

My friend Maria and I headed out to the Opryland Hotel on Friday night to see the Christmas decorations.  They have a few events out there (including the Rockettes), but we were mostly just interested in walking around and looking at the decorations.  We also were interested in not spending money.  The hotel has two displays — “Ice” and “Snow” — which appear to be aimed at deprived southern children who don’t have snow to play in outside and therefore need to pay $15 to make snow angels and build snowmen.  We didn’t pay to do that.  Nor did we pay for parking, because only poor out-of-towners would think you need to pay $18 to self-park in a huge parking lot outside the hotel.  Those of us Nashvillians know you can park in the outlet mall parking lot (right under the sign that says, “No access to Opryland Hotel”) for free and walk over to the hotel.

The hotel just recently reopened after 7 months of restoration after the flood.  Nine feet of water stood in the common areas of the hotel, and the cost of the damage was in the millions.  But now they’re back in business, and the hotel is even more beautiful than before.

The crowds were out in force to walk around the beautiful lobbies of the largest hotel outside of Las Vegas, which is famous for its celebration of Christmas:

Lots and lots of lights– each lobby more decorated than the one before it

Poinsettias were everywhere — planted in the gardens, tucked amongst the rocks, and even forming whole Christmas trees.

 

the view down underneath one of the bridges that runs through one of the lobbies

I liked this little guy, who was tucked along one of the paths:

We ducked outside in front of the hotel to see the lights out there.  I think Dad should try to do this to all our trees in our front yard:

And since this is the South, and we’re unafraid to say what this time of year is all about — you’ll notice down there, in the right had corner of that picture above…

He who makes the cold winter night warm again:

Odes to Advent

I’ve noticed that music, along with food, is one of the most prominent features of this blog. I suppose that gives everyone a glimpse as to life here in “Music City.” We do two things well: music and food.

I love almost every kind of music, but one of my favorite genres of music is Christmas music.

(My sister has a great series about obscure Christmas carols on her blog. Go check it out.)

I love Christmas music so much that I’m not listening to it yet.  Over the past few years, I’ve become more cognisant of my need for Advent.   December is such a month of celebration for me, I need to make a concerted effort to have a time of preparation for the Christmas season, which doesn’t run from December 1st until December 25th, but from December 25th to the Baptism of our Lord in early January.

my cool 70s advent wreath

Or, for me, until February 2nd.  Since I have my own tree and can decide when to take it down, I decided three years ago to follow the Vatican’s tradition of keeping the Christmas tree up until the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord (Candlemas), which marked the end of the Christmas season on the old calendar of the Church.  Last year, I was very busy the first weekend of February with a large conference, and so my tree stayed up until Fat Tuesday.

But I digress.

As I was saying, over the past few years, I’ve tried to make more of an effort to really embrace Advent.  I don’t want to turn into some sort of Advent police that doesn’t let people sing Christmas songs and refuses to attend Christmas parties before December 25th.  But I do think there can be more of a balance than what we see in many places today.

One of the ways I do this is to set certain markers for myself.  I am not decorating my apartment, for example, until the 3rd Sunday of Advent, which is traditionally a day of celebration and rejoicing. It’s also the day my family usually decorated when we were growing up.  I’ve had a love for Gaudete Sunday since I was young and thought that everyone lit a pink candle on that day because it was my birthday week.  I’ve matured past that thinking, but I still secretly think I came into this cold world a little early so I could celebrate my birthday each year during the rose week.

So my Advent is marked by waiting– for the big celebration of Christmas and, along the way, minor celebratory days of transitions.  Gaudete Sunday is one day, my birthday is another, and the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is another.  Today I put my winter/Christmas sheets on my bed to celebrate.  My parents gave me a new quilt for my bed (my other quilt was very spring-y and I’ve wanted a red Christmas-y one) for my birthday this year, so I decided to celebrate the Feast by the bedding transition.

On my birthday, I will begin listening to Christmas music.  I love Christmas music so much that depriving myself of it for the first half of Advent is truly a sacrifice.  I could probably listen to Christmas music all year round.  But I don’t give into the temptation until one of my celebratory days.  Last year, to help ease the pain I made an Advent CD, which is comprised of everything from O Come, O Come Emmanuel, to Conditor Alme Siderum, to Lift Up Your Heads (from the Messiah), to my mother’s favorite, People Look East.

All of this is just introduction to the subject of my blog post: the new Carbon Leaf CD.  I’ve talked about Carbon Leaf on here before, and I probably mentioned that they left their label and are now independent, which means that we get new music from them much more frequently.

So they recently released a short little Christmas CD.  But the beauty of this CD is that it’s not so much a Christmas CD as it’s an Advent CD!  They just don’t know it.

The songs, all original, talk more about winter and preparing for Christmas than they do about Christmas itself.  The title (and first) track, “Christmas Child,” counts down to Christmas (“three weeks ’til Christmas day…”) and even mentions Advent calendars: “and on the pantry door hangs a calendar counting down the days with their little doors, ” not to mention other little fun traditions, like “I push the cloves in the tangerine.”

Christmas Child reprises as an instrumental on the CD, but the other instrumental is my absolute favorite: Sutton’s Reel.  Another blog that reviewed the CD said that they could picture the people of the Christmas Carol dancing to this song, and I have to concur– some people might wonder why it’s on a Christmas CD, but to me it just screams of a frigid wintery night when the town gathers in the local pub for a pint and, with the local musicians jamming, dance the cold away.

Other great songs are Ice and Snow, which is a waltz (I dance along in my head), and Ode to the Snow, which came on the other day as I was driving (to pick up my mail at the post office) and big, wet snowflakes were coming down pretty steadily.  I couldn’t stop smiling (even though I was on my way to pick up my mail).

Ode to the Snow might be the most Advent-y of them all, because it speaks of the world shutting down and the silence that accompanies snowfall.  I’ll let some of the lyrics speak for themselves:

Snowfall requires listening
And the silence it brings is deafening
As it whispers it echoes echoes through my bones
…
And the stillness drifts back in like possibility,
And in the silence is where you find the song.
And I’m blinded by the ease of letting go,
Worlds shutting down… Just an ode to the snow.
…
Tree limbs bend and spring up again
The snowfall fumbling down through the pines
To baptize, to confirm the frozen hallowed ground

Another song speaks of the loneliness that can accompany this time of year, and again, seems to speak of the preparation time (like writing Christmas cards, decorating, etc).

So this has been my soundtrack these last few days.  Before I begin listening to Christmas music, I’ll be listening to Carbon Leaf and my Advent CD.

And now I’m off to snuggle under my new sheets and quilt.  Goodnight!  And happy feast!