Didn't See That Coming

About a month ago we received a letter from our pastor announcing she would be leaving our church and moving to another here in Des Moines. And she would be leaving during the second week of December. Talk about short notice. If you look at the church calendar you can see that it is full of celebrations, so there really isn't a good time to leave your congregation, but three weeks before Christmas? Give me a break.

So, for Christmas Eve we were going to attend a Christmas service at a different church. Daphne found one downtown that was holding a children's service at 5:00 featuring a Nativity play.  That sounded really cool, but Char's fever put the kibosh on that. She had gone to nap at 11:00 a.m., and she didn't really get up for eight hours. I think this year is the first time I've missed a Christmas Eve service, but I was pretty sure God would understand. But still, it felt odd missing church. 

Char slipped out of our bed around 7:00 pm and asked to watch some "Mickey Christmas". I know she meant the singalong video tape, but we were in the TV room without the VCR, and Daphne popped this into the DVD player instead.

Daphne's sister Phaedra had given her this DVD as a gift a few years ago, and I had forgotten there was more than one Christmas program on it. The DVD includes the following short films:
• Mickey's Christmas Carol
• Pluto's Christmas Tree
• The Small One
• Santa's Workshop

While watching "Mickey's Christmas Carol" Char surprised us by requesting "macky cheese". I jumped at the chance to get some food into her, and I quickly went to work in the kitchen. "Mickey's Christmas Carol" runs for about 25 minutes, so that was just enough time to make the pasta and let it cool, too.

To keep her occupied and also eating, we moved onto the unknown program, "The Small One". Wikipedia describes the plot as, "The story of a young boy, outside Nazareth, who must part with his best friend, an old donkey named Small One. He brings it to market, but no one is in need of a 'scrawny donkey', save for a tanner [tanning is the process of treating skins of animals to produce leather]."

"The Small One" also runs for 25 minutes, and the story ends well. I won't tell you how it ends, but both Daphne and I had to pass Char's box of Kleenex back and forth a couple of times.

Turns out we all got to see a Nativity story after all. I guess God really did understand.

"The Small One": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx73a1yRLKE