![\"manger\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2017\/12\/manger.jpg\")
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Chreasters, if you\u2019re not familiar with the phrase, are those people who show up for church twice a year, on Christmas and Easter.\u00a0 And how they used to p*** me off \u2014 especially those who saved\u00a0a whole row of seats with their coats, so that one family member would give you dirty looks as you desperately tried to find seats for your own family.\u00a0 And at the same time, in order to get seats for my own family, I felt obliged to play the same game.<\/p>\n
This year \u2014 well, let me tell you, life is a lot easier when your kids are old enough that (especially due to the magic of phones with games to play) you can all arrive a half-hour early (actually more like 35 minutes early), find a good seat up front, and just wait for mass to start.\u00a0 No more stress to get everyone ready.\u00a0 No more splitting up and having the younger kids come later so they\u2019d have less time to wait and get squirmy.\u00a0 And this year neither my parents nor my sister were here, so that\u2019s three fewer people to worry about when they\u2019re ready, and, let\u2019s face it, none of them are exactly the sort of people that are ready for anything early.\u00a0 Plus, my middle son decided, after having gotten a proper suit for homecoming, that he wanted to wear it to church, so we bypassed the usual nagging the kids to wear nice clothes.<\/p>\n
I felt wonderfully insulated from all the stress, especially being up front, so that not only were we not desperate seat-searchers, but we didn\u2019t have to watch the seat-searching.\u00a0 Plus, as a bonus, sitting up front meant that I didn\u2019t get irritated by people passively listening rather than singing, because front-row people are more likely to sing.\u00a0 And, the choir sang the Christmas version of the Hallelujah song, and that was very nicely done.\u00a0 The whole thing\u00a0was blissful.<\/p>\n
And while being well aware that it\u2019s a fortunate consequence of not having young children any longer, I felt much cheerier, much more willing to welcome (even if just in my own mind \u2014 I was hardly going to voice a \u201cwelcome\u201d that would unintentionally offend longtime parishioners that I simply didn\u2019t know) the irregular attenders.\u00a0 \u201cHey, aren\u2019t our priest\u2019s shiny vestments cool?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHey, did\u2019ja like his homily?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHey, that\u2019s my son playing trumpet!\u201d<\/p>\n
So whether you make it to church once or twice a year, or every week, I hope your Christmas worship, and your entire Christmas celebration, whatever form it takes, is joyful.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Image:\u00a0 our parish\u2019s manger.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chreasters, if you\u2019re not familiar with the phrase, are those people who show up for church twice a year, on Christmas and Easter.\u00a0 And how they used to p*** me off \u2014 especially those who saved\u00a0a whole row of seats with their coats, so that one family member would give you dirty looks as you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-7903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\n