Christmas
Is it related to writing?

Of course it is!  Many writers drew some of their best and-or earliest inspiration from a variety of holidays, most notably Thanksgiving and Christmas.  From Dickens' "Christmas Carol" to Earl Hamner, Jr.'s "The Homecoming" which became the basis of "The Waltons" television series, writers galore have drawn their inspiration for certain stories from Christmas.  Myself included, in some early amateur press material.

I haven't yet made a story of it:  not enough 'percolating' time yet; but I did want to share my lovely Christmas Eve experience in the blog.

I had decided a week or two ago, having recently qualified conditionally for the local transportation service for elderly or disabled people under certain circumstances, to go to the parish I had belonged to during a prior tenancy to the place I'm living now.  One of those qualifications was distance; so the trip automatically qualified as long as I could pay the minimal fare.

The pastor had gotten the inspiration some weeks back not to hold the 4:00 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass at the church:  overflow had been a problem even with two Mass venues in the past.  He had arranged with the local high school to use their Field House for the Mass at 4:00 on Christmas Eve.

A lovely Mass it was, too.  Of those visible, and one suspects there were those who weren't visible, I figured there were at least 112 people actively involved in presenting this Mass.  Between greeters and ushers there were probably thirty.  Two priests, a deacon, two lectors, at least one altar server.  An adult choir with at least 12 members; children's choir about the same number, and about twenty kids ranging from about six to about sixteen years of age in a silent skit.

The organizers of the liturgy had arranged for the Gospel to be read (by the Deacon) in four segments.   In between the segments, the combined adult and children's choirs sang an appropriate verse of a well-known Christmas song.  As they did, other young people in costumes processed down the center aisle and took places in front of the altar: Mary and Joseph with a baby doll placed in a lined cardboard box, shepherds, a sacristan with a star on a pole, a troop of angels, and finally the Wise Men.

The venue made for a relaxed atmosphere wherein the youngest children could walk around or gather for ring dances while being far enough away not to distract the clergy on the altar.
It was a beautiful and very spiritual service.  Everyone was in an appropriately spiritual mood.

Even the pastor was a bit "blown away."  [His words.]  Though he had anticipated a crowd sufficient to book this venue, he had not anticipated a crowd of the size that actually did turn out.  Some of which may have been overflow from the neighboring parish, which turns people away when it becomes a fire safety issue of overcrowding.

The estimate of attendees was about 1500; and having not estimated that much there was standing room only for about 400 people, since it was too late to lower the bleachers on the side of the stadium that they had not done in advance.  Even with bleachers on one side and seating on the floor for about 400 people unable to use bleachers, they still had about 400 people in SRO status:  although any of those could have chosen to sit Indian-style on the floor for which there was plenty of room.

What a superbly spiritual way to start out a Christmas Day!

Time (Past Time) for an Update

Obviously, I’ve not done well keeping up with this blog once again.  I’ve had a number of situations going on in my life dating back about a year, and it’s kept me from getting to everything I should get to.

Some of the things I’ve been involved in, writing-wise, have led me to decide that it’s going to be to my advantage to update this blog before another weekend begins.

In that sense, I’m effectively getting a jump on my ‘New Year’s resolutions’ process.  I decided that the thing to do is get at least an update entry on the blog, and then spend part of the weekend going through my at-home resources looking for other possible topics for this blog to write up for posting over the course of the next few weeks.

I don’t actually do, per se, New Year’s resolutions.  What I do is what I call a “look back/look ahead” where I try to evaluate where I’ve been and where I’m headed at the new year (approximately) compared with the previous start of the year.  It’s often a journaling based exercise, and if often takes a month or so to do thoroughly.  One of the easiest blog entries to do, of course, is some sort of book or website review on a topic related to writing or the teaching of writing skills.  At this particular time, I am exploring some opportunities to do such reviews for websites that pay for guest posts of a review nature.  Not every book I’ve encountered lately is likely to be suited for submission to such markets, of course, but I need to spend some time looking through what I have and sorting out what to review for which website – including this blog.

I hope to do that this weekend, as well as some other activities that I hope will lead to additional blog posts for this blog and other ideas for various other websites I hope to participate with in the upcoming weeks.  For me, in a sense, this harkens back to my earliest days as a ‘working’ writer:  which in this case means writing in ‘professional approach’ manner to get my first few credentials as a writer.  I’ve always been one to look at what I have to work with and set some goals based on that, then follow through on the production and submission aspects of that.

It’s a good time of the year to reinstate that habit.  Hopefully, the result – or at least a part of it – is that I’ll have some blog entries for readers soon.