Catching up on my activities

Our Christmas Masses went well. A slight hassle at the 7.30pm Mass on Christmas Eve at Doyletown when I discovered the overhead projector was faulty and it mean we’d have to sing Christmas carols by memory. I had the paper-copy, so I led the singing as much as I could and we did very well. A lot of families were at this Mass, including one family from a neighbouring parish whose four children I’ve baptised and buried a fifth (their first child). I caught up with them after Mass and they’ve bought one of the shops at Doyletown, and so are now parishioners.

Back here for Mass at Midnight. The Christmas tree that my sister Bernadette helped decorate looked superb. The Mass-sheets, with the various responses for people to say and with notice containing important notices, were colour-coordinated with the main colours of the decorations. The Christmas cake and champagne celebration afterwards was a lot of fun.

9.00am Mass Christmas morning was also a joy, and the celebration after it was just as enjoyable.

I came home and slept for a couple of hours before driving to Home City to join my family in exchanging gifts. At about 4pm some guests arrived and we sat down for late lunch/early dinner. The guests were Brian and BJ, a gay couple who live next to my parents, and Lisa, a teacher from the same school where Bernadette also teaches. It’s interesting to see the way my parents and my other sister, Patricia, all relate to Brian and BJ. My family think they’re great guys – and they are. But Patricia has definite problems with me being gay (“It’s ok for people to be gay as long as they’re not from my family.”), and I doubt my parents would accept me as completely as they do Brian and BJ if they knew I was gay. Bernadette is just fine about me and has no problems with my sexuality.

Thursday was a quiet day spent sleeping on and off in front of the television.

Friday I drove to Home City to buy a new television as the one here has just about expired. Then I had lunch with the family at Patricia’s home before going off to a wedding rehearsal at a little country church about 30 minutes away on the other side of Home City. The wedding the next day was a real country wedding: the church was decked out in fine style, the guests all knew each other, and the atmosphere was one of great happiness.

My weekend duties went smoothly and now I can take it easy until Tuesday evening when we have our New Year’s Eve Mass.