Remembering Christmas Morning

Ah, yes...so long ago.

I've truly only scattered thoughts of this morning, as once my mother fell and then my whole family came I forgot about the morning.

I remember that I had my first cup of coffee, and then woke Youngest Son up, with a truly happy Christmas greeting "Did you scrub the toilets at church yet?" That's because it's his job. Christmas morning, and we still had work to do. And for the record, he had done them already, so rolled over and went back to sleep. Probably dreaming that he lived in a family where Christmas festivities were beginning in a more joyful tone.

The Husband God Gave Me had some work to do, but I had completed mine on Christmas Eve night. The church auditorium looked lovely. I vacuumed with the Christmas lights on, and enjoyed being all alone in the quiet, with just the hum of the vacuum. When I was done, I played the piano for a while.

Then, and here is where the story is actually going. I practiced the three songs I was playing to accompany two singers. We had practiced together several times already, but I wanted to be sure I felt confident playing them. I even arranged my music.

That's where the trouble started. The first song was three pages, the second song was only one page, and the third song was also three pages. When I practiced, everything was in working order and went smoothly.

BUT...on Christmas day, when we were actually in front of living, breathing human beings, I made a horrible mistake.

Yes, my music remained in order.

Can you guess what I did?

I played the short intro, but the singers did not come in strong. This surprised me, as we had practiced enough and things had gone well then.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, an arm reaches in front of my face and removes a piece of music.

Oh dear. What I had done was played the first page of the third song - while the only page of the second song laid on the middle page of the third song. The single page was snatched away just in time for me to play the second page of the third song.

I wanted to crawl into a hole for a long time (i have actually done that - professionals like to label it agoraphobia) but I still had to play the single page song. Of course, they were PLANNED to fit into the service in a certain way. This left the song 'Communion Hymn for Christmas' to be sung after the fact.

Very shortly after this happened, my mom fell leaving church and arrived at my home. Then, my entire family came to celebrate Christmas day.

This helped to knock out the mental torture I would have put myself through for having been such a dolt.

But, I haven't played since.