It is true that when you are away from home you see the trappings of Christmas and the Holidays all around you, but you deny that it is really happening. It is just a way of coping with the fact that you are not where you want to be, enjoying family, Santa-ing, caroling, and seeing the snow. I (Carolee) have been experiencing this phenomena lately, however, last Sunday night at the Visitor Centre, the Spirit of Christmas came to me with full force. I am thankful for that. We were treated to an evening with two wonderful young men. One, a member of the Crawley Ward we attend, played a flute solo (with piano accompaniment) of O Holy Night. As many of you know, and from now on you better know, that it is not Christmas unless I either can sing or enjoy someone else performing O Holy Night. Period. I love that particular carol so much. Over the years Niel and I have heard some wonderful performances of that carol and it always brings the Spirit into my heart. Then we were treated to listen to another young man who entertained us with carols, some of which were written by him. He was spectacular! He is a professional musician some of you may know about. His name is James Conlee.
Also, during the evening, my new favorite speaker, Pres. Irwin, of the temple presidency, gave some really inspirational thoughts about Christmas. He talked about Good King Wenceslas. (That’s pronounced: Wen – ces – las.) I’ve sung and listened to arrangements of that particular carol all my life. Maybe some of my grandkids aren’t familiar with it. It would be great to learn about the message of that carol. I think it used to be in one of our old Hymnals. The message is really deeper than him being a good person, serving those who have less than himself. He provides others with the things they need and at the same time he leads the way for the little servant, whom he asks to accompany him on their trek. The message can be applied to us when follow in the footsteps of our Savior, as He leads us in doing good and going on our way in this difficult life. Please have your family sing it this Christmas, all the verses. You may need to study them to find their meaning as you sing it. It is truly a great story.
Writing about carols reminds me that, through the miracle of today’s technology, we are able to listen to Christmas music on FM 100.3 on our laptop. We are kept up to day on the weather, roads etc too. Isn’t that great?
Our trip into London to see the lights and maybe do a little shopping has been postponed to another Monday. I’m sure there will plenty of pictures to share then. We have been delighted to have all the missionaries from the London South Mission come here for their annual Christmas get-together. The mission is large enough that they are spread out into four different days. Every Tuesday and Thursday we have them do a special session at the temple. It means that we get to see their bright, young faces and help them through their time with us at the temple. Love it. One of the sister temple workers started talking about how wonderful it is to see them and doesn’t it remind us of our own children going on missions. Well, I lost it. Then, Sister Anderson said: “Oh, don’t you have a missionary out?” Seriously. It wasn’t just that I was thinking about Hermana Lancaster in the Bronx, (which I was), but I was also remembering my own two sons and their being gone at Christmas. I remember that we tried very hard to sing a carol to Brad in Spanish and he cried all the way through it. I think he was crying because of our terrible Spanish though. I also remember Ryan sending us a recording of them (the Elders) driving to somewhere, on a snowy highway, just to show us how incredibly straight the roads were. Well, the roads were incredibly straight and long, but we all ended up with motion sickness from watching the recording zip from one side of the road to the other and had to turn it off. They were great memories. GOD BLESS THE MISSIONARIES!
I hope our lovely granddaughter, Hermana Lancaster, is feeling the Christmas Spirit in abundance. I’m sure that she is learning what Christmas is really all about, as we are, too, in England. All I need to do to do is think about my being in the heavenly choirs, singing Hosannas when the baby Jesus was born. I’m sure we were all there, singing together.
“God bless us, everyone.”
Love to all of you at this special time of the year.
Carolee and Niel
a.k.a. Granny and Grumps
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