We drove off at lunchtime on Saturday after a major rearrangement of books in the house to allow space for a tree (a tree in a house? Who one earth thought up that daft idea?*) suitably stressed and crabby. Classical music in the car calmed us (alright, me) right down.
I had to drop in to a very nice little shop in Chesham called Tiger's Eye which sells unique jewelery and other gift items. Bought a ring for Grace, a secret (in case she's reading this) gift for Beccy and a little wooden photo frame for Jamie to take to work. I was under strict intructions to get myself a new pair of earrings for Christmas too, which I duly did.
Into S's home where we met with the W and P families. We always get together for a tea and games/carols every Christmas and we were looking forward to catching up with them. We used to live close by eachother, though we moved away. S had prepared little plays for us all to act in and made props and scenery and everything. This worked very well and we all had a lot of fun. Next we ate and drank and then we spent time talking. We finished off the visit with Jamie playing guitar and the rest of us singing. Always my favourite activity and some of it was almost tuneful! (Jack's voice is breaking at the moment which is a bit of a problem!) We laughed a lot. It was very relaxing.
This morning, I dropped Jamie at church early so he could help set up the sound. He was also playing percussion today. This is a little weird. He's a bass player really, but there was someone else playing bass and no one on drums so he filled in the rhythm with an interesting combination of odd instruments. Bongos, Tom Toms, shakey eggs, tambourines, and ethnic things I don't know the name of. There's one Jamie invented which is a fork with jingle bells threaded onto the splines which are bent over. We call it a sporkarine. {vbg} It actually sounds pretty good!
Before we had all the proper percussion instruments, we relied on the sporkarine and a bunch of my old yeast, spice and mustard containers which we filled with various beans and lentils etc all uncooked ;-) for much needed rhythm. People began to ask Jamie if had brought his condiments to church that day. Hey, Needs Must.
He's resting now before going back to church to rehearse the musicians and singers for the carol concert later. Grace is singing in this. I decided, much as I love singing Three Kings From Persian Lands afar, that I needed to NOT be stressed about this weekend, so bowed out of the carol concert a while ago. Looks like we are ALL singing/playing/working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so we're doing our bit! Which reminds me, I'm not sure what we are doing about presents on Christmas Day if we all have to be at church at 8.30. Eeek! I suppose it'll have to all happen later this year! Or earlier...!
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* St Boniface or Martin Luther, take your pick of the legends.{g}
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6 comments:
As a child we always had stockings (small, with little bits and pieces in them) first thing, and were allowed one present each before Church in the morning. Everything else then waited until after dinner.
Now we are only committed to playing on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning is free, so we do open all our presents then, but if we had to go to Church in the morning I would do the same as my parents did.
Like the sound of the sporkarine!
Ah the tea with your friends sounds lovely.
Glad you were able to have those moments in the midst of your busy schedule.
When I make it back to England I am going to look you up and we can have tea. We might go back in 2007 so if we do I will let you know and you can get the tea ready :-)
The interesting musical instruments sound great.
I have to wonder if Gaffer tape could be used in any musical way....probably not!
Jodi,
Do you doubt the power and universality of Gaffer? :gasp:
The little shakey containers were all, of course, sealed with Gaffer Tape!
Can you imagine how dreadful it would have been, in the middle of a rousing rendition of a Graham Kendrick song, to have lentils scatter across the floor?
People might have thought it was some strange, ancient libation ritual. {vbg}
Kathryn,
No More Nails, right? Off to Homebase I go. It SOUNDS like the right thing anyway! {g}
Dorothy
What fun your tea sounds. We try and do a family "tea" every now and again, but we have never had one with anyone else.
I love the musical instruments. Anything to "make a joyful noise"...right?
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