Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot...

Hello, Mein Followers!

 

I hope you all had a beautimous and frabjous Christmas. Ours was sublime. Did you know that there was a full moon on Christmas?

 I made a wish, of course. You wanna know what I wished?

Oh, come on, you know I'm not telling. That's how wishes DON'T come true!

But we had a gorgeous Christmas. I was actually feeling *good* on Christmas, which was a big thing for me. I've been sick for something like two months now. I was sick when I went to Carmel early in November, with a horrid chest cold that kept me up at night coughing. That switched to a horrid head cold early in December, wherein my ears were SO FULL they were so sensitive, and my voice had no depth. (That, by the way, is when we recorded that 25-minute Christmas music video posted earlier on my blog - hence the reason for the slightly whispery/reedy quality to our voices.) So Christmas, I actually felt GOOD. I could SING, which I could not do for Midnight Mass. (My voice kept cracking then. Imagine how cute our Christmas carols sounded.) And Christmas morning, we had our beautiful sausages on sweet rolls with orange juice for the littlies and mimosa for the not-so-littlies, opened our stockings and what-all, sang JOY TO THE WORLD after mein papa lit the Christ Candle, and then opened pressies! There were a bunch of us - fourteen opening presents in the morning, and then a total of nineteen at the table for our gnocchi dinner. We watched Rise Of The Guardians after dinner and had dessert, and I wished on the full moon.

Anyway, what are your plans for the New Year? Me, I'm going to spend it in. I may have a shot of honey whiskey, shared with my besties, Stoick, Chrysophylax Dives, and Amalthea. We are pretty tight, the four of us. I will prolly watch Person Of Interest, so I can be sure to stay awake until midnight. I don't usually have too much trouble doing that. I'm a night owl anyway.

Left to right: Chrysofylax Dives (green), Stoick (red) Amalthea (unicorn)

And that was our Christmas, and I just wanted to wish you all a holy, happy, blessed New Year. I hope you enjoy this little song. I have a sister who knows Eleven is MY Doctor, and will send me all kinds of things Eleven related. I happened to love this song in the Christmas special, and this priest actually has a wicked good voice. I hope you enjoy it!

GOD BLESS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Le Cat

 

Happy New Year!

First off, Merry Christmas to all!  I do hope you all had a beautiful and wonderful Christmas Day.

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Merry Christmas!!!!

Mine was just the best.  I feel like my family celebrates the best Christmas.  (No, I'm not prejudiced. Not at all!  ;-)

We had Midnight Mass at our house, and we (the girls) sang all the Propers of Mass XVI, which is the Iesu Redemptor Mass.  It was really quite lovely and I think we did a pretty good job, though ONE sister (I shan't mention any names) sang a part of the Sanctus quite incorrectly and quite in my ear, so there was a faltering moment where the Sanctus was WRONG until we managed to get back on track.  Other than that, all went well and we sang some lovely Christmas carols as well, like In The Bleak Midwinter and Angels We Have Heard on High.

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Once Mass was over and all the parishioners that had come to it had gone home, we put the wee ones to bed.  Then, the grownups - or grownuppish ones - put out all the pressies under the tree and laid out stockings for Santa to fill (which he did AFTER the grownups went to bed!) and left a little plate of cookies and a glass of milk out for him to snack on once he'd finished all his heavy lifting.

We went to bed around 3 a.m.

Around about 5:15 a.m. I was woken  by the sounds of wee voices in the living room.  I was determined to get more than 2.25 hours of sleep so I shut my eyes, but unfortunately I'm that Christmas kind of person that cannot get back to sleep once waking on Christmas Morning.  So after a struggle of fifteen minutes I got up and joined the merry throng on the couches and we watched the Christmas tree flicker with its lights and commented on how many pressies Santa had left!

Once everyone in the house had wakened - about 6 a.m., I think it was - my dad and brother started cooking the Italian sausages, both hot and mild, and warming up sweet buns in the oven.  We made coffee and drank bucketloads of coffee while waiting for the first sausages to become available, and made up orange juice so we could have orange juice for the littlies and mimosa for the adults.  (I'd bought champagne a few days earlier.)  We munched on our sausage rolls, went and lit the Christ Candle and sang Joy to the World and put the Baby in the Manger, then we opened stockings.  THAT was fun.  But then all the little ones got down and dirty with the pressies, and that was even MORE fun!  (We made sure to pull out the ones to save for Epiphany first, before we got TOO crazy with the presents.)

Christ Candle

For a couple hours it was mayhem, watching people open boxes, opening your own boxes, throwing out wrapping paper, etc.  All was madness and merriment, while we ate sausage rolls and drank mimosa and coffee and ooooohed and aaaaaahhhed over everyone's gifties.  It was jolly!  Then, of course, we had a nice long day where we could read, catch up on sleep, get pretty, and then we had dinner of gnocchi and ham with a to-die-for meat sauce and all the trimmings of vegetables and salad. (Food is a BIG DEAL in our house!)  It was really a lovely, lovely day.

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Now, of course, it is New Year's Day.  Last night we all stayed up - or at least, the grownuppish ones of us stayed up - and we watched Flashpoint to keep ourselves awake til midnight.  At midnight, Amanda and Maria both opened their bottles of whiskey that they had gotten for Christmas and we toasted in the New Year with shots all 'round.  (That's how we celebrate.  We don't exactly go "hog wild" when we party.)

Now we have the Epiphany to look forward to.  That is the official Twelfth Day of Christmas.  Most people do it backwards, counting from the 13th of December to Christmas.  Actually, the twelve days of Christmas START on Christmas Day and ends on January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, the day the Wise Men brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Child Jesus.  I love that we celebrate the Epiphany in our family.  It extends Christmas and makes the entire season that much better.

The Three Wise Men

We are going to be having a delicious roast and baked potatoes for dinner today.  It's going to be epic!  Then we are hopefully going to watch the second Librarian movie tonight.  We watched the first one yesterday, and it was a bit cheesy, but quite good.  (FYI, it's now a TV show, and the main character in the actual Librarian movies is the main character in the TV show, and Christian Kane [Eliot Spencer from Leverage, for the initiated] is in it as well!! I have not seen the TV show, but I wanna! :-)

So, that's all I have for now.  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Epiphany!! Hope 2015 is an incredible year for all of you.  God bless!

Ah, She Lives!

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I'll be honest, as soon as the Christmas season hits, I'm not at all in the mood to be on the internets updating my blog. I'd much rather be caroling Christmas songs and wrapping pressies - and buying pressies - than updating people on my life.

 My life is boring.

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However, I thought I'd be a good little soldier and at least wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a Happy Epiphany. Here you go. You're welcome.

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I have a couple New Year's Resolutions....

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1.) I am going to read Mere Christianity.

2.) I am going to finish my book(s) and get an agent.

Those are my two goals. They feel like a lot, don't they? (I'd have put down Get Married and Start a Family as number 3, but since that's in God's hands I'm going to leave that up to Him.) To be honest, if I do meet somebody this year, my life will be complete.

I haz bared my SOUL to you people!!

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I did not watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

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I can't promise when I'll watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special, either. I'm sure Capaldi will be a great Doctor. I just don't feel like letting Eleven go. Ever.

Ever ever.

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Two of my favourite things I got for Christmas:

A ladybug rosary.

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A Phantom of the Opera coffee cup.

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My sister found the Phantom mug at a secondhand store. Why would someone get rid of something like that?!

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Anyhoozle, I had a great Christmas. We sang the Christmas Mass at our mission chapel and it was lovely, and we sang Christmas Carols before Mass, and THOSE were lovely too, and then we had gnocchi and ham and meat chunks for dinner, and THAT was lovely, TOO.

A couple of us girls stayed up for the New Year. We do that every year.

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We drank whiskey to toast in the New Year. Yes, we do that every year, too.

We also watched the last two episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that we could watch for free on IMDb.

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At the end of episode 10, THE BRIDGE, I was all like:

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So now, I haz updated, I haz hopefully amused you, and I shall now vanish back into the aether from whence I came.

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Happy New Year!!

God bless

Cat

Six-Sentence Saturday 12/31/2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I can't believe that 2011 is over and that we are heading into 2012. I'm hoping that you all have a blessed New Year, and that the Christ Child grants you light and peace in 2012.

1.) We had a fun, fun, fun dinner tonight, with fruit kebabs, a vegetable spread, multiple cheeses, crackers, chicken wings and sausage, bruschetta, and of course multiple wines for wine tasting, with sparkling cider for the littlies, which was so, so, so lovely!

2.) I am half-way through revising a novel that I love, love, love.

3.) I seem to have a penchant for repeating things thrice tonight. :)

4.) I have decided that I want to get back into my music and my clay with the beginning of the New Year - one of my sisters bought sheet music of the Lord of the Rings for flute, and I have to say that music may be the thing I love the most, though writing is what I do best.

5.) The one thing about Christmas I utterly adore are all the Christmas songs - I admit I'm a really Christmas-hearted person, and I could listen to Christmas music all year, if everyone else would let me! - so I'm going to share a few Christmas songs I totally loved this year.


6.) We may have Bishop's wine tonight, which is a fancy way of saying mulled wine - it's a lovely, warming brew that makes you feel quite happy and fulfilled! :)

That's all I have for tonight, except I want to wish everyone a very, very Happy New Year full of blessings and answered prayers. I myself have promised candles to St. Andrew and St. Raphael if they come through with a particular thing I prayed for during Advent, and I think I may add St. Nicholas to that promise, as soon as I find a novena I especially love.

God bless, youse all, and have a very, very Happy New Year! May the Christ Child fill your hearts and souls and very lives with peace and happiness, and a joy that will last you all year round. God bless, and Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Epiphany, and Joy to the World!!

My favourite Christmas Story -- Number 7

The last, and possibly best Christmas story ever is called THE CRIB OF BO'BOSSU. This is another story that can be found in Ruth Sawyer's THE LONG CHRISTMAS book, and it is another gorgeous story.

Bo'Bossu is a clever woodworker. In the boatyard where he works, his handiwork is the most sought-after. His is the hand that crafts the most delicate pieces for the ships, and he is the one who shapes and fashions the figureheads for the ships prows.

The other lads that work in the boatyard respect him. Amongst the lads in town, however, Bo'Bossu is mocked and humiliated, for he is a hunchback, slow and shuffling and not at all straight as the other boys are straight. Great sport it is for them to throw things at him and watch him run on his warped legs.

Bo'Bossu braves the jeers and thrown stones because of his great love of our Lady. He loves to spend time in the chapel and pour out the sorrows of his heart to her. As Christmas time draws near and the chapel is decorated in preparation of the great night, Bo'Bossu notices that the manger that will hold the Infant Child is a poor bit of workmanship. It is unworthy to hold the God of Gods in its frame. Bo'Bossu resolves then to fashion a new manger for the Child, a lovely thing in the shape of a boat with angel figureheads at each prow.

He snatches all the hours he can over this work, and though his days at the boatyard are long this job he has set for himself is a labour of love and he rests at it. He smoothes the wood, and carves it as perfectly as he can, and as the days draw near to Christmas and the village lads' torments become harder and crueller to bear, he makes a bargain with Our Lady: if he finishes the manger in time for Christmas, will she please make him tall and straight as the other boys?

A week before Christmas a new and urgent job is brought to the boatyard, and all the lads are made to work even longer hours in order to complete this task before the deadline. Bo'Bossu has no more time to work on his manger, and time becomes another relentless enemy. The night before Christmas he seizes the last scraps of daylight he can to feverishly work on his manger, but the daylight is against him and night falls before he can complete his task. In despair he sits in the darkness crying out his apology to our Lady.

In that bleakest hour a lad comes to him, a lad unknown but who also worked in his father's carpenter shop. This lad tells Bo'Bossu to rest, and he will complete the manger. Bo'Bossu is so exhausted that he throws himself down and does indeed fall asleep, and when he wakes the manger is complete and the lad is polishing it to a shine.

The two of them take the manger to the chapel before the Mass is begun, and as Bo'Bossu lays the figure of the Christ Child in the manger he recognizes him. Surely, surely the Christ Child and the mysterious Carpenter Lad are the same...

Every time I read this story I cry like an idiot, but it is such a beautiful story and written so well that you feel the tension as Christmas Eve approaches and Bo'Bossu's manger is still incomplete. You feel the amaze he feels when he recognizes the Babe and the Carpenter Lad.

Merry Christmas, my dear friends, and a very Happy, Happy New Year!!! God bless you all.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas...

Happy New Year, everyone! Today is the very first day of a whole new year. May this year be one full of joy and goodness, and if you suffer tribulation, may God give you the strength to grow from it.

Today, or rather tonight, I'm just going to post the verse for the eighth day of Christmas. I stayed up too late for New Year's, toasting it in with a small glass of whiskey and a couple chocolate-covered coffee beans, so I'm pretty tired. I know you'll all understand.

On the eighth day of Christmas, we receive Eight Maids a-Milking, which symbolize the Eight Beatitudes. These are:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.
Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The beatitudes are very beautiful. Each one is like a special promise that God made to us. For those who do what is listed, the reward is given.

So here you go, then. Here is the verse for Day Eight of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas my True Love gave to me
Eight Maids a-Milking (the Eight Beatitudes)
Seven Swans a-Swimming, (the Seven Sacraments)
Six Geese a-Laying, (the Six Days of Creation)
Five Gold Rings, (the Pentateuch)
Four Calling Birds, (the Four Evangelists, or the Gospels)
Three French Hens, (the Theological Virtues)
Two Turtledoves, (the Old and New Testaments)
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree. (Our Lord Jesus Christ)
May you all have a Holy and Beautiful year. God bless.