Sights and Sounds of Christmas

I thought I'd show you a few more pictures from our Christmas program last weekend! This was our first time to participate in this particular program, though the church has presented it for many, many years. (I actually remember attending it with my mom years ago when I was still single.) Once again, we were narrators this year, and I have to say that this is probably the most powerful Christmas program I've ever heard, especially from a musical standpoint. Some familiar Christmas songs, some new ones, and some that were not necessarily classified as Christmas songs, but they certainly told the message of the season!

Some of the photos in this post are ones I took from a Facebook compilation, so I don't know who to give credit to, but I will be sure to say I didn't take them all!

This is our dear Miss Becky, who is one of the members of our small group. She is the sweetest lady in the world and has such a huge heart. She didn't sing in the choir, but her husband did, so she was there early one night and we were able to get a picture with her.

Ryan and I got a picture with the photo opp area. :) Our church has some great decorators who always make the Christmas area look so nice!

This is Joyce, who is also a member of our small group, is also the sweetest in the world, and also has a huge heart. (You can probably go ahead and say that for everyone you read about below.) Joyce is a gifted musician and had a beautiful solo in this program.

My mom came not just once, but twice to hear us! That meant so much to us. I felt bad I didn't get a picture with her both nights, but here we are on her first night with us!

This is Timmie (and oh my, I hope I spelled her name right!) who is a new friend to me. She was in my women's Bible study group this fall, and she and I got to know each other a bit there. She is from Africa and has the most delightful accent. From where I sit in church, I can see her on Sunday mornings, and I love to watch her sing and worship.

They are kind of hard to see here, but the drumline from a local high school came to accompany the choir and soloist on The Little Drummer Boy. I have to confess that I typically hate that song, but this rendition was really really good!

A couple more pictures from the performance:

The choir had about 100 people in and sounded SO RICH AND FULL. Beautiful music.

Ryan's grandma and Bob came the first night, so I had to get a picture of Ryan with his grandma!

Here are a couple that our friend Al took that first night. The man in the second picture with us is Pastor Garey, who came out of retirement for eighteen months to serve our church while we have been in transition between pastors. He will be returning to retirement at the end of this year and while were SO excited for our new pastor to arrive, we are going to miss this man so much. He has loved us, invested in us, championed us, and taught us so much. He is a gift!

Some pictures from the second night:

We had several friends who came to see us the second night, and it was so much fun to get to talk to them after. Here I am with my friend Kari and her friend Jenny (I've adopted Jenny as my friend too, so I told her to be in our picture)!

And Kari's mom, Sandee, who has taken me in as a bonus daughter in her family too.

I asked Ryan to take a picture of my friend Ronda and me...and this is what he did:

Mmmm hmmmmmmm.

We got our picture eventually:

(Guess we bored the guy behind us.)

One of Ryan's co-workers came, too, with her family!

And his dad and step-mom came, too!

A few more photos of the actual program:

The very last night, my friend Amber came, and she took a couple of us mid-narration!

And here we are with Craig. I've talked about him on the blog before. He was our DARE officer when we were in elementary school!

And last but not least...the Asbury family. They don't attend our church regularly, but they are almost always in these programs, and we've become good friends while being in the patriotic programs with them. We didn't have a picture with them, so we had to fix that!

So there you have it! :) Lots of pictures - my apologies - but a fun, fun weekend of being with friends. A total bonus of hours of worship.