December 8, Advent Day 11
Village Building Featured: Dahr
Reading: John 16:33
Advent Reflection
Villager Featured: Advent Reflection from Cacki Kelly
My late husband Charlie, a lifelong North Carolina boy, had cousins in Montgomery County. Being an only child meant that every cousin was a valued commodity, and the more the better. Therefore, when the invitation came every December to join them for Christmas Eve, we joyfully accepted.
Problem was, a road trip to Mt Gilead (pronounced Gih’-yad) did not fit comfortably into our Christmas Eve church schedule. I wondered why they didn’t go to church on Christmas Eve? But this was their tradition, we wanted our daughters to have a feeling of kinship with their Kelly cousins, so we committed to making it work.
The clan gathered at their long-dead parents’ home, a rustic frame house which now-a-days saw life only once a year, on December 24th. The sisters would go early in the afternoon to turn up the heat and throw the dust covers off of the furniture. The men would blow the pine straw from the walkway and stack firewood in the monstrous open fireplace in the kitchen. Casseroles and desserts would appear, and a cedar tree would be hastily decorated with vintage ornaments. It must have been a festive atmosphere as the family prepared for their annual gathering at the old place.
Meanwhile in Southern Pines, my little family was doing its own Christmas Eve thing. Our daughters sang in Alan Reed’s youth choir at Emmanuel and the 5 PM family service was that choir’s time to shine. But we were due for dinner in Mt Gilead, 45 minutes away! As soon as communion ended, we would sneak our girls out of the choir loft, which is now the back balcony, and hit the road, sadly missing “Away in A Manger”. It was dark and windy 2-lane road to Montgomery County, and so we named this annual trek “Over the River and Through the Woods”.
As we drove, we would review the names of these cousins we hadn’t seen since the prior Christmas Eve. Which son is the newspaper editor in Michigan? What’s the other brother’s wife’s name? What’s up with the half brother who has never seemed quite right? We would make our grand entrance as they were pulling up chairs to plates piled high with food. The adults would rise to greet us warmly. The youngest generation would ignore us which was OK with me as I couldn’t remember their names anyway. I liked to position myself in front of the unscreened fireplace, both to warm my backside and also to protect my children from this fire hazard. From this vantage point, and holding my paper plate of food, I could observe my husband having the grandest time with his first cousins. This is the definition of Christmas joy.
For a few years, Charlie sang in the adult choir at Emmanuel. This meant that after arriving late to the feast due to one church service, we then had to leave early to get him back for rehearsal for the later church service. On the drive home we would watch the sky for a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh and I would read The Polar Express by flashlight.
If you ask my now-grown daughters about their enduring Christmas memories, they will both mention church at Emmanuel and Over the River and Through the Woods. It was our Oreo cookie of Christmas Eve, with Emmanuel’s worship services being the sturdy and predictable chocolate cookie on either side, and the meal with the cousins whose names we got mixed up as the squishy but highly anticipated middle. Delicious!
— Cacki Kelly
Upcoming Events with Emmanuel
Friday, December 17th: Bach’s Lunch at 12pm, Alina Cherkasova - soprano singer
Friday, December 24th, Christmas Eve:
3:00- Christmas Eve Eucharistic service with Children’s pageant
5:30-Choral Prelude
6:00- Christmas Eve Eucharistic service
8:00- Chorale Prelude
8:30- Christmas Eve Eucharistic Service