what's everyone doing tonight?

[franksolich]

Well, here it is.  Christmas Eve.

Traffic slowly begins tapering off about this time, until there's just a few left.

So.....what's everybody doing this evening, if one's around?

The neighbor just left for Sioux City, Iowa, to pick up the primitive aunt at the bus depot there.

It's gently snowing outside, the William Rivers Pitt being covered with an exquisite mantle of white.

The cats are fighting.  This place has enough acreage inside the house to allot each cat space about the same size as a tennis-court, but they always seem to want the same space.  I think they should all each take their own vast territory, and leave the others alone.

I'm working tonight, 11-7, so that someone else can take it off.

Christmas for franksolich began at 6:00 p.m. central time, 5:00 p.m. mountain time, because that's when it's midnight in Rome, and so far it's been a pretty mellow Christmas.

[Ballygrl]

I got so much done today that I'm basically chilling right now. All the gifts are under the tree and the stockings filled, the pies are done and some of the other food is prepared and ready to go into the oven tomorrow. Hubby picked up some wine and a small bottle of rum for people to put in their eggnog tomorrow, I'm not a drinker at all, I just never liked the taste of it, but that rum looks kind of good in the bottle, but since I've never ever been drunk I'm reluctant to try it because I have no idea how I'd be while drunk LOL.

[Evil_Conservative]

Not much.

Just relaxing, will watch A Christmas Story at 8pm, and watch it almost all day tomorrow too.

[Carl]

It is just me in the house here so kind of like any other evening.

[franksolich]

Just relaxing, will watch A Christmas Story at 8pm, and watch it almost all day tomorrow too.

You know, madam, if I had a television set and a VCR, I'd right now be watching Lawrence of Arabia, the early 1960s blockbuster starring Peter O'Toole.

I've never bothered with movies, for obvious reasons, but I really like that one.

There's been times when I've watched that movie over and over and over, for days.

But for the season, earlier today I read the maudlin The Little Match-Girl.

[Ptarmigan]

Listening to Christmas music.

[IassaFTots]

Watching A Christmas Story, and waiting for dinner to be ready.  

[true_blood]

Just hanging out.
I went to mass earlier, the 4PM mass. (Didn't seem as full as it used to be in the past.) After hanging on the Cave, I may fire up the PS3 with some Call of Duty.

[Mike220]

Throwing a pizza in the oven, drinking some wine and flipping through the channels for something interesting.

[Alpha Mare]

Everything's ready for tomorrow. Just getting a head start on some end-of year paperwork, listening to Dino, probably watch "Wall Street" later.

[BattleHymn]

I'm here making the family cream cheese log.  Since my mom's mom is no longer with us, I've made it the past two years.  Nobody else can get it tasting just right, apparently. Granny would have been proud.  

[franksolich]

Listening to Christmas music.

I did that earlier this month, and the music is still circulating inside my head.

Because I can't hear, music is a "sometime" thing to me; it takes special audiological equipment that transmits sounds through the skeletal structure.  I have to be alone, and in a darkened room, to "hear" it, because it takes a great deal of concentration.

And there's no guarantee that franksolich is "hearing" the same things other people are hearing.

But for whatever it's worth, I consider "Lo, a rose ere blooming" to be the finest Christmas music, ever.

[franksolich]

I'm here making the family cream cheese log.  Since my mom's mom is no longer with us, I've made it the past two years.  Nobody else can get it tasting just right, apparently. Granny would have been proud.  

I'm the same way with poppyseed rolls, the only member of the family who could ever make them exactly the same way our mother did.  My mother made them well-done, dry and crispy.

I'm still trying to find out the source of another family tradition.  At Christmas dinner, we always had pineapple chunks swimming in creme de menthe.  They were carefully served everyone, including young children, in crystal bowls from pre-war Czechoslovakia.

I've never seen this anywhere else, pineapple and creme de menthe.

I'm wondering if, like the iced coffee-and-milk my father always drank, it's a Pennsylvania thing.

[Janice]

We just finished eating some char grilled salmon fillets and sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar.

Gonna sip on some ice cold Grand Marnier and water for now and save the rum and eggnog for tomorrow.

[franksolich]

Just hanging out.

I went to mass earlier, the 4PM mass. (Didn't seem as full as it used to be in the past.)

I suspect part of the problem lies in secularization of the Catholic Church.

To me, it seems rather dry and humdrum, all this "audience participation".

One longs for the days (days which I alas never knew) when services were 99% music, Latin, candles, incense, and damned little yip-yapping.  Hordes of choristers making the walls bend, people marching in solemn procession, pomp and pageantry reflecting the Glory of God.

There's been this deal the past 50 years, about making religion "relevant," and thus we have the hippie guitar-strummers and somesuch.

But the relevantists miss the point; religion is supposed to be as unlike the world as possible.

Christmas services in England, in Italy, in Rome, in--so help me--the former socialist paradises, leave one open-mouthed in awe and wonder; Christmas services in America leave one open-mouthed, yawning.

[Janice]

... But the relevantists miss the point; religion is supposed to be as unlike the world as possible.

Christmas services in England, in Italy, in Rome, in--so help me--the former socialist paradises, leave one open-mouthed in awe and wonder; Christmas services in America leave one open-mouthed, yawning.

Yup. Thats about how I'd sum it up too.

[Ptarmigan]

I did that earlier this month, and the music is still circulating inside my head.

Because I can't hear, music is a "sometime" thing to me; it takes special audiological equipment that transmits sounds through the skeletal structure.  I have to be alone, and in a darkened room, to "hear" it, because it takes a great deal of concentration.

And there's no guarantee that franksolich is "hearing" the same things other people are hearing.

But for whatever it's worth, I consider "Lo, a rose ere blooming" to be the finest Christmas music, ever.

I like this rendition of O Holy Night by Josh Groban.
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQWXfHzOKUU[/youtube]

[franksolich]

Yup. Thats about how I'd sum it up too.

When I was a teenager, on my first trip to England, I attended the Christmas evening services in the medieval Canterbury Cathedral; it was powerfully awesome, the darkened cathedral lit only by candles, long lines of priests and choristers.

I had a ticket for general admission, entitling me to sit in the main public part of the cathedral (where there were chairs rather than pews, facing the direction of the altar).  But due to some misunderstanding, I was put into the area beyond that, next to the choir, in those old oaken benches that ran up-and-down that section, rather than across (such as pews would do).  I sat in between an ancient guy in a naval uniform with much decoration, and a Lady Houghton-Styles, or something like that.

I dunno how that happened; something was said to me that I didn't hear, and I ended up there.

It was awesome, the solemnity and pageantry; one could not help but to feel religious.

[NHSparky]

Relaxing here, having had a dinner of a very nice dry aged ribeye, loaded baked potato, and salad.  Baked a few cookies for dessert and am munching them down while washing them down with cold milk.

And yes, coach, I understand the whole issue with the cats fighting.  You'd think they would be happy with different areas and no fighting, but nooooooo...

[franksolich]

And yes, coach, I understand the whole issue with the cats fighting.  You'd think they would be happy with different areas and no fighting, but nooooooo...

They could each even have their separate rooms if they wanted.

But noooooo..... they all want the same room.

[BattleHymn]

And yes, coach, I understand the whole issue with the cats fighting.  You'd think they would be happy with different areas and no fighting, but nooooooo...

I love watching cats.  One of our favorite "be entertained by the cats" activities is to get out three boxes for our three cats that squabble.  They will all try to fit into the same one. 

The oldest cat (18)  has figured out to wait until all his associates have lost interest in the boxes, and then he has free pick of whichever one he wants. 

[franksolich]

I love watching cats.  One of our favorite "be entertained by the cats" activities is to get out three boxes for our three cats that squabble.  They will all try to fit into the same one. 

The oldest cat (18)  has figured out to wait until all his associates have lost interest in the boxes, and then he has free pick of whichever one he wants. 

You have cats that lose interest in boxes?

Mine never do; they jump up and down and get all agog and excited whenever I carry a new empty box inside.

Below is an old photograph, from 2005, when I was getting ready to move out here.

Floyd is on the "third floor," George on the "second floor."

[Ballygrl]

I suspect part of the problem lies in secularization of the Catholic Church.

To me, it seems rather dry and humdrum, all this "audience participation".

One longs for the days (days which I alas never knew) when services were 99% music, Latin, candles, incense, and damned little yip-yapping.  Hordes of choristers making the walls bend, people marching in solemn procession, pomp and pageantry reflecting the Glory of God.

There's been this deal the past 50 years, about making religion "relevant," and thus we have the hippie guitar-strummers and somesuch.

But the relevantists miss the point; religion is supposed to be as unlike the world as possible.

Christmas services in England, in Italy, in Rome, in--so help me--the former socialist paradises, leave one open-mouthed in awe and wonder; Christmas services in America leave one open-mouthed, yawning.

Do you know that it's near impossible to get a seat at a Latin Mass? many of us miss those days. Here's a site that lists Latin Masses all over the US and Canada:

http://web2.airmail.net/carlsch/MaterDei/churches.htm

[Mike220]

Cats are a trip. I don't know what I'd do without Mason. Inquisitive little bugger.

Left one of my dresser drawers open a few weeks ago and he decide to jump in for a look.

It's a crappy cell camera, but you can still tell he's looking at me like "What do you want?"

[franksolich]

Do you know that it's near impossible to get a seat at a Latin Mass? many of us miss those days. Here's a site that lists Latin Masses all over the US and Canada:

http://web2.airmail.net/carlsch/MaterDei/churches.htm

You know, madam, I know many Protestants think it's silly--which is their prerogative, of course--this fixation with Latin, a "dead" language, but again, it goes back to this idea that religion is supposed to be as much unlike the temporal world as possible.

The workers and peasants in the socialist paradises apparently don't see anything wrong with the Orthodox churches using Old Church Slavonic, which is a "dead" language.

Quotation marks in both instances of course sarcasm.

There's a joke around here--which might, or might not, be true (only franksolich knows)--that I have it in my deathbed instructions that when a priest is summoned, he must know Latin, "so that God may understand what he's saying."

Being deaf, the matter of languages isn't as important to me as it is to hearing people, but it seems even in mere reading, that Latin has a certain rhythm, a certain pattern, that makes it ideal for feeling religious.