Twas the Thai before Christmas...

It was the Thai before Christmas and all through the 'hood,
Santa was deciding who was criminal or good.
It was dark and nearly everything was closed,
so we went in the restaurant in our church clothes.

We parked in front of the big church so...
the likelihood of coming back to a busted car was low.
We both ordered Pad Thai, mine was mild and Dave's was spicy.
It wasn't a traditional dinner, but it tasted quite nicely.

With tummies full and with the candlelight service about to start,
we bundled up Miss Olivia, which you know is quite an art.
It was cold and dark and I was quite happy inside,
because it was David's idea to go to Christmas service and I thought to hear this I might have first died.

We sat in back just in case we needed to flee.
Instead we enjoyed the choir and sat in front of a kind family.
They were without little children and didn't take the church thing so seriously,
so with our child, they entertained her ferociously.

Olivia would play with them the game of take and share.
They laughed and kept her playing and happiness was in the air.
Olivia played on the entire church pew, and folks at ends blew her kisses, too.
We sang the first "Christ-ish" Christmas songs of the season, it was new.

Just Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells were sung before.
We didn't mean for Christ to be ignored.
At the end of the service it was late and we were sleepy,
so we left when Olivia saw the fire of the candles and was getting weepy.

We thanked the family behind us and fled,
and as a mom to the "Christmas Angel" (as the family behind us called her), I had visions of sugarplums dancing in my head.


**So, Christmas Eve is the big day in my family, too. Growing up, we opened a present in the evening after a large family dinner of traditional food. I liked the anticipation and I loved the food. So, this was very different to me and very impromptu. It was great. The stress was low, we went with the flow, and there was a great feeling to all of it. I loved that Olivia had a good time and was played with. also worried about Olivia being a bother to everyone, but had confirmation that it was fun to see Olivia so 'active and attentive to detail.'

There were parts that really made me laugh. I know we aren't supposed to laugh in church, but Olivia was so funny, I had to hold it in. We sang NOel...and Olivia kept shaking her head. She had done this before, but it's funny every time. The choir kept moving throughout the chapel (and was upstairs above us) and Olivia kept putting her hands up and gesturing "I don't know"...when they kept moving.

I loved that we just had in our minds that we were going to go to the pretty church with the red doors and we went and liked it. The pastor was young and delivered a great service. We came home and Olivia crashed and we stared at her for about 20 minutes and then went to sleep.

I had a yeast infection and a sinus infection and Christmas Eve still was awesome!










This was the only photo that we got of all three of us...