Music in a White Christmas

Christmas has taken on new dynamics for us since our move to Florida from Colorado. One of the reasons we wanted to make this change was to be able to spend more of the holidays with our grandchildren without having to buy a plane ticket.

Beloved and me with some of our grandchildren

That desire is being met in a big way and we are thrilled! This past weekend we drove to the home town of one family of our grands to see them in their church Christmas program.

Granddaughter #1 plays the grand piano between
show performances

I can hardly get my mind wrapped around the fact that babies born not that long ago are now being asked to participate in such helpful and awesome ways to put on professional-quality programs. I am grateful we have been able to move closer and get in on some of this before they are full-fledged adults.

It is also thrilling to see how the larger churches in the 'Bible Belt' do things at any time of year, but perhaps most especially at Christmas.

I'll just admit it, pageantry and great showmanship really impress me. 

It could be that the influence of Disney World affects the quality of special effects put into these programs, but then again, maybe it's due to the increasing ingenuity of our computer age.

In this particular Christmas display of music, my family had seven members on stage at one time. I can say I know a couple of these angels really well.

We had grandchildren in the adult and children's choirs...

And a couple who watched (or slept) from the comfort of our arms in the audience (and don't you know Beloved and I enjoyed that!!).

Over the course of the weekend, we were privileged to see the program three times (one rehearsal and two performances on Sunday).

our church in Jax

Then, because one can't get too much of Christmas music, when our weekend with the grandchildren was over, we hurried back to our own church to see a performance of its annual Christmas celebration.

There is one more very notable aspect of the weekend I must not leave out in this story: real snow fell on Friday night. When we woke up with the grandchildren on Saturday morning, snow was on the palm trees! 

snow on the palm tree

Admittedly, it was not much. (humor me and see the white stuff on the palm branches)

The children scraped up all the snow they possibly could from hard surfaces in the back yard and had a snowball fight. 

This was the area's first snowfall in 25 years. The kids were excited beyond belief.  Beloved and I thought we had left all the snow in Colorado . . .