Christmas, may it come again soon

Yesterday in Priesthood meeting a deacon was called upon to offer the opening prayer. He offered gratitude for the spirit that comes with Christmas and prayed that Christmas might come again soon. I think we all understood that he was not praying for a calendar change or presents but that the spirit of Christmas, of brotherly love and kindness, joy and peace, might return soon to our hearts.

I love this time of year, the music, decorations (not that I do any myself)and the feelings that come as we contemplate the birth of our Savior and the gift of the atonement that he gave to us. I wish I could carry that feeling in my heart all the time, but it seems to be a challenge for me. Airports make me cranky. I won't go into the details of why that is. But in general I think it must be the tendency of everyone, including me, to be in a rush and totally self absorbed.

Generally participating in music helps me feel the joy and spirit of Christmas. I have made it a practice to join the ward and stake choirs every where I have lived. I have not found the stake choir here to be as enjoyable as my experience in other stakes where we have lived. I was however, pleasantly surprised and a little humbled last night as our stake choir performed. It really went much better than I thought it would. Maybe angels really do make up for some of our deficiencies. Our stake choir director has ambitions of the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra I think. We were able to put together a small ragtag orchestra. Robin and I both planned to sing in the choir and I was also going to play with the orchestra. It ended up that I did not sing. There was no rehearsal where every person was present. Many musicians that were recruited came once and never returned. Some had schedule conflicts. We had only one rehearsal where the choir and orchestra actually practiced together Saturday morning and it was a disaster. We were really regretting having invited our neighbors to the program.(They didn't come anyway)The orchestra had trouble playing with the choir, neither the choir nor the orchestra had rehearsed some the music enough and were in pretty rough shape. I really thought it would be a train wreck. Somehow, with the help of the Lord, we made it sound pretty good. I think most of the people there actually thought it sounded great.

I hope we can all have Christmas come again soon.