I've Had All the Family I Can Stand...

...I can't stands no more! Well, not really, as we had a very nice, and relatively (get it?) stress-free Christmas/grandparent gatherings of doom/travel across the state week. But, even after the best of hostings and visitings, one is happy to be home and unencumbered. For some reason I feel like I wrote almost the exact same thing last Christmas, but I'm too lazy to check right now.

Anyway, a few back-in-town nuggets for you:

1. Our church's Christmas Eve candlelight service was majestic. Right now our church does the big holy day services about as well as they can be done, I think. There is just the right mix between the theatrical and the contemplative, between the joyous and the sober, and between the personal and the communal. And the music, again, was outstanding, including the Handel. I love Bach's oratorios, but not knowing German, there is no way to fully, fully appreciate them. If you are an English-only speaker, I don't see how you can resist picking Handel's "Messiah" as the oratorio. Can we make sure to keep sprinkling "Messiah" throughout Advent, as we did this year, please?

2. Speaking of music, our minister's wife is a sublime soloist - don't know enough to judge whether or not she could have done opera (maybe she did), but if not she has to be darn near that caliber. I have never before seen (and heard, obviously) someone nail the ending of "O, Holy Night" - you know, the high notes no normal person can approach - so well, and yet so effortlessly. It just seemed so easy for her, with no strain at all. She could just as well have been filing her nails while finishing that one off, or so it seemed.

3. I just finished eating a plate of plain rice and green beans, and I feel like never eating anything richer than that for several weeks. I am sick, sick, sick of big meals and heavy food. And all those great holiday Food Network specials from last week? Don't make me gag.

But come to think of it, there are some yummy chocolate-covered peanut butter balls in the kitchen right now...

4. Wyfe thinks we are the only family without three children whose car trips devolve into three-way, every- man-for-himself wrestling matches (driver, perhaps dangerously, included). I doubt it, but perhaps not every family tops the fight off with a Ric Flair "Whoooooo!", as we sometimes do.

5. Both arms, and my lower back, are sore as a consequence of our first three days with a Nintendo Wii. The main culprit? Wii Sports baseball, which I've had to avoid the last two days until I heal up. Next time I think I'll ice down in the trainer's room after the game.

6. Tonight I will finish Helprin's remarkable Winter's Tale, and will report on it either tomorrow or Monday (I almost promise).