Catholic Sensibility

Is This Advent? That's what they tell me, anyway. Before our daughter came, Anita and I observed Advent a bit differently than we do now. The Rigid Liturgist now accedes to trimming the tree on December 17th. St Nicholas or Santa and whatever "third face" he has are just fine in our house. I must confess we haven't set up an Advent wreath. But on the other hand, I've still not given in to the dueling decorations on our street. Anita informed me that I will put up electric icicles; it's the least we can do to keep the neighbors from thinking we're pagans. I guess. One of those weekends at church. Ambulance call at 10:30 Mass. Musical misadventures at the two Masses I played at, some of which were courtesy of me. Advent has some of my fave hymn repertoire, but dusting these pieces off every eleven months has disadvantages. The school Masses look like O Come O Come Emmanuel plus business as usual. I sort of raised my eyebrow over that one, but given the way they asked me to play The Advent Song (tres largo) I can understand why they don't want to explore anymore. The parish's Stewardship Committee said the children's choir appearance during Fr John's "More Money" talk the week before Thanksgiving was "perfect," and was there any way they could sing again this weekend. (Forget Gaudete Sunday; it's pledge weekend.) RL has turned into a pup. "Sure they can sing," I said. A cynical parishioner mentioned they want those extra few families that only show up when their kids are doing something. I prefer to think of the confluence of opportunities: I can give my Ensemble the week off to polish up for Christmas repertoire; I can throw a catered brunch for the kids and their families (have to do that in the school auditorium--our parish hall is too small for 43 choristers, parents, and siblings); I can lubricate the management mechanisms in the parish for future liturgy. It's only two days before my choir director's big seasonal program. In short, when she shrugged and said she comes to Mass anyway, and it didn't matter if she sat with her family or directed a choir, I thought we had a slam dunk. Let's just hope we can avoid another 911 call this weekend. Last time the kids sang, we had a vomit deposit in row one just before the entrance song. Hopefully we've gotten the strange stuff out of our system. So in between special requests (Can you transpose "O Holy Night" for keyboard and voice into A?) and the usual crunch to line up some good musicians and singer for the rest of the month, (and not forget my Advent chops) liturgical ministers' schedules, and the like ... I think I'm ahead of the game just by having Anita's electric icicles in my den ready to go. What do you think?