Random Thursday: Holiday Notes and Some Random Flashes of Urim

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

Chag urim sameach, y’all—and Merry Last Week of Frantic Shopping For That One Impossible Person You Pulled For the Family Exchange.

Have a random mixed bag o’ holiday!

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Turnabout is Scientific Play . . . Or Something

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Sugar Plum Jamming

Dads + Holiday Jumpers + Dubstep =
My New Favorite Christmas Commercial

The music is available for downloading, somewhere, too—check the YouTube info.

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Handel with Care

Last year, our church choir attempted to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus”
at the Christmas Eve service.

We worked really hard, learned those parts—
even brought in a couple of stunt sopranos.

This Christmas Eve, we were going to give “For Unto Us a Child is Born” a try.

But then we were told that instead of singing,
the choir will be voicing the lines of the children
performing in the Christmas Pageant Sermon,
which is titled,”The Best Christmas Present Ever”.

Sunny and I are a Cabbage Patch Kid.

I can only assume that the Chapter Office of Westminster Abbey
placed a call to our church secretary,
requesting that we not set Handel spinning in his grave again this year,
as it quite disrupted the midnight services over there.

We’re very, very sorry.

Just out of curiosity . . . Where is Bach buried?

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No, YOU light the shamash

Menorasaurus Rex.

Get ’em right here.

(Thanks, Watson—I’m saving the rest for next week!)

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It’s Not Just a Gig, It’s An Adventure

Seems the  Sideboys vocal ensemble
had a few “problems” with their sheet music at the 2010 U.S. Navy Band Holiday Concert.

Remember men:
The only easy harmony was the last one.

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Chag Urim Sameach

When I was a kid and it was December, our family would gather around the Advent Wreath on the sideboard before dinner each night.  Either my sister or I would strike a match, light the appropriate number of candles, and read a prayer from the official mimeographed booklet:*

As we draw near to you, Lord God, keep us aware of your presence in all we do. Come with power to enlighten us by your grace, that we may live in praise and peace all our days.  We ask this through Your Son, our Lord.  Amen.

And then we would go eat and argue about who would blow out the candles after dessert.

But for an overlapping handful of nights during that month, we would put the Advent pages down, take two steps over to gather around the menorah, strike another match to light the shamash, and read from different official booklet:

Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.

Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech HaOlam, she’asah nisim l’avoteinu, b’yamim haheim bazman hazeh . . . Amein

And then we would light the appropriate number of candles in the menorah, go eat, and argue about who was going to blow out the Advent candles after dessert, since the hanukkiyah candles were allowed to go out by themselves under the watchful eye of my mother, who was less interested in keeping her offspring from committing a liturgical crime than keeping the cats from setting themselves alight.

Good times.  Good memories.

I thought maybe that this year, we would revive the tradition, my children and I, with our Espiscopalian prayers and wreath and my rusty Hebrew and the small menorah my grandfather*** brought me from Israel when I was only a little older than Sunny.

The other adults probably wouldn’t hold with this and my kids just want the chance to play with fire and wax, just like my sister and I did.

But that’s okay.

I couldn’t unearth the wreath in time,^ but I found the menorah and some candles that fit.  It will be well after sunset when I get home from work (it’s dark now), but Hanukkah isn’t a High Holy^^ and we don’t go much for orthodoxy, anyway, if you couldn’t tell.

That’s okay, too.  We all celebrate miracles in our own ways.

And on this Festival of Lights, I’m celebrating with crooked, striped birthday candles, good memories, two of my favorite pyromaniacs, a flammable cat . . .  and by sharing a video of several good-looking, talented Jewish boys singing a history lesson:

a lichtigin Chanukah, y’all!

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*Yes, I’m old. Now, hush.

**Blessed are You, O Lord Our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.

Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who made miracles for our forefathers in those days at this time.

***My grandmother’s second husband, who married her when my mother was fifteen.  So my extended family is Jewish, but my immediate family isn’t.

^Or one of the wreaths, as my mother has given me at least four over the years, all of which disappear completely the moment we think about them—the traditional Christmas miracle.  Janie is fine with this, though, as she’s the one who  gets to light the big wreath at church for the early service this year.

^^Seriously, it’s actually a minor holiday, built up in perhaps unconscious response to The Hype that Ate Christmas.   Not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy the Hype, or most of it, but occasionally I wish we would all get a grip.