We had our traditional Christmas services this morning in Church. The choir sang four numbers along with two speakers. I enjoy singing in the choir and we performed reasonably well for a volunteer pick-up type of a choir. We sang an arrangement of Silent Night followed by a speaker reading the Christmas story from Luke. We then sang Angels We Have Heard on High from the hymnbook followed by a congregational hymn Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plain. We then sang Were You There followed by the main speaker. The choir then sang an arrangement of Hosannah. The congregation sang O Come, All Ye Faithful and that ended the service. Our normal organist was out of town, so I was substituting on the organ. All went well except for the introduction into O Come, All Ye Faithful! My feet wanted to play the hymn in it’s normal three flats, hands were playing it in one sharp as it is now written in the hymnbook. We survived, however. Our organ has a nice 32′ diapason stop which got cranked in on the last verse…!
This Christmas looks to be very quiet around the house. We’ve been invited over to our Bobby and Duane’s house for Christmas dinner. We’ll have a quiet dinner here with Nina and me on Christmas Eve. This is the first time that I can remember where we’ve not yet found anyone to come over for Christmas Eve!
Bradica has been scarfing up on candy, however. She’s torn open a couple of packages that had candy in them. The one last night had fudge in it and she’s been a pretty sick dog. She just started to perk up a little while ago. Only problem is, she never learns a lesson from that.
Looking ahead at the new year is a bit difficult. Business conditions are improving, but very slowly. Bonuses and merits increases will continue to be on hold for at least the first six months of the year. Hiring is frozen; even if someone quits they likely won’t be replaced. Spending will be tightly constrained. I think that’s even the optomistic outlook. We’re looking right down the barrel at war with Iraq and if that happens, the economy will likely go south in a real hurry. That war will likely be very messy with a lot of casualties and the American people won’t tolerate that very well. We’ve got plenty of political problems as well. Reason and moderation have completely departed Washington and have been replaced by radical fanaticism. Only the far right and far left remain as they’ve literally made everyone that even smells moderate inconsequential. Makes one a bit depressed, me thinks.