Break Out the Christmas Sweater, It's Time to Sing!

Hi! Remember me? No? That's okay, I don't hold it against you. Well...I'll get over it eventually.
Now that I'm speaking to you again, guess what I'm doing tonight? Yours truly is singing a Christmas cantata with the First Baptist Four Oaks choir at the medical mall in Smithfield. Smithfield has a medical mall, you ask? What's a cantata, you ask? To which I reply: I don't know what either of those things are, for sure. All I know is that we have to wear "Christmas colored" sweaters and show up at six to sing this stuff we've been practicing for about a month now. I'm sorry, SC, but I'm a little tired of Christmas already. Yes, I'm one of those. Well, in all honesty, you can't blame me. Not when Crabtree Valley Mall was decorated for "the holidays" two weeks before HALLOWEEN. That's right, "the holidays" now consists of two and a half months of merry-making as opposed to the traditional "twelve days". Twelve days seemed plenty to me. You can make a lot of merry in twelve days. Any more than that just seems greedy, like we've all turned into 12-year-old kids and we've decided that from October to December, all we're going to do is shop and think about what we want and consume ungodly amounts of sugar and/or pork products. Only, unlike 12-year-olds, we can drive and we have debit cards. Okay, so we can drive. They have credit cards and blackberrys and taunt us from the backseat. I'm not a fan.
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the Christmas cantata tonight. We're actually singing it at church on December the something-teenth so tonight's a "practice" of sorts, at the expense of the listening public. We're not that great. I have a solo. I'm sorry.
So what are you doing to get in the Christmas spirit? Personally, I'm running and taking a lot of Advil. You didn't know I run? Well, I didn't until August...not seriously anyway. I've found it's a great way to de-stress and stop thinking about all the crap that bounces around in my head on a daily basis (often resulting in blog posts such as this one). Now, I go for my "nightly trudge" about four to five nights a week. I know that's not "nightly", but it works for the sake of this post and its easier to say than four-or-five-night-a-week-trudge. I know. Shhh. I'm proud of myself for sticking with it and surprisingly, I don't feel like I'm going to die halfway into the first mile anymore. I actually got complimented on my pace by a fellow runner on the street a few weeks ago! Boy, was I elated. I felt like a bit of an imposter and experienced a weird kind of guilt but I was elated! Look at me! I run! I'm a runner! Kind of the way Bob was a sailor in "What About Bob?" I love that movie.
Running is actually a good way to get into the Christmas spirit because, along with focusing you on the glorious phenomenon that is your God-given ability to breathe, you get to look at everyone's cute little Christmas decorations out in their yards. These started popping up in my neighborhood about two weeks before Thanksgiving and have grown drastically in volume and intensity ever since. Deer and inflatable snowmen everywhere. Arranged in ways that make no sense whatsoever. But the Christmas spirit is out there and eventually, it'll catch up to you and bludgeon you into submission. That's where my Advil comes in. No, I don't share.
What else has been going on....let's see. Oh, I'm currently attending three different churches semi-regularly. Saturday nights, I go to C3 church in Cleveland for an inspiring "modern worship" experience. Then I go to the 9am service at Coats Baptist on Sunday morning and then I'm back at my church by 10:30 to play guitar and sing in the 11:00 service. I'm really quite tired by lunchtime. What's resulted though is that I hear some really great and varied sermons each week and I see a lot more people than I normally would otherwise. The people at Coats Baptist are really so nice...I think they're my favorite (don't tell anybody). I sat with the sweetest little old lady yesterday and she was kind enough to let me when I asked her if I could. She could sing too, boy howdy! Reverend Mooney is one of my favorite preachers on the planet and I leave Coats feeling like I've actually learned something I can use in my daily life. C3 took a little getting used to but it's a lot of fun and gives a different perspective on scripture than I'm used to. My friend Erin got me going there and I'm a big fan of hers as a result. They have ridiculous amounts of energy at C3 and it's almost (almost) contagious. I'm stubborn and set in my ways. I've never mastered "peppy", though I've given it several sincere efforts. These people have so much pep though, it's hard not to throw candy or bust out an impromptu "running man" occasionally. It's hard, but not impossible.
My own church has, through a fault entirely their own, given me free-reign to teach and sing no less than two praise songs every sunday...any songs I want! This is exciting in that it presents a rather large challenge when faced with a congregation of about a hundred 80-somethings. Okay, so they're not all that old. AND they give the singing a much better shot than I would've given them credit for several months ago. It's great to get up there to play and sing and be greeted with smiles and loud singing instead of the heckling I would normally expect. There's only occasional heckling from the choir. And that's only because they're behind me and I can't confront them mid-song without tripping over a cord or taking out my music stand with my guitar. But that's the ONLY reason!

Sadly, as I'm sure you'll agree, this has been a rather rambly blog post and for that, I feel a tiny twinge of remorse. Strangely though, it's felt good to sit down and belt out another blog post after being away from it for so long. Don't worry, i'm not sure if this habit will "take" or not, but it's quite possible. I've been bored lately. Which could result in some riveting reading for you guys. We can only hope.

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