Most Wonderful Time

Christmas has been, and always will be, my favorite time of year. Traditionally, it meant parties, family time, friends, presents, celebration, etc. I've come to love Christmas even more over the last four or five years because it meant I got to go home to see my friends and family.

Beginning this year, this tradition will change significantly for me. Though it still remains the most wonderful time of the year, it will be so differently. Being a pastor now means that there's a lot of things going on in church that I'll need to be involved in. Unfortunately, it means I don't get to go back to Edmonton to see my friends and family, but it could be something I rebrand down here in Vancouver.

Last Friday, we had our candlelight service at church. It was pretty awesome! Originally, I was kind of thrown into the "overseeing" duty for this without really having much of a choice. Then, I was approached in a bit of an emergency back up situation where someone that was going to be in the play got sick and couldn't participate in it anymore. So yes, I dusted off the Splash Kingdom acting skills and learned the lines in about two days and jumped right into a major role in the play.

At first, I was nervous about the actual evening because it seemed like the planning and preparation was pretty disorganized and messy. But when it came to the night, it worked quite well. I loved that we were able to step up our game and really pulled through with lines and all that stuff. Maybe we were just caught in the moment, but regardless, it came out pretty much positive. The only gripe I had with the evening was that I don't think we had enough candles. The stage, especially, was still quite dark so it was hard to see the faces of people that were up front. Haha.

This Wednesday, for Christmas Eve, we're going to have some caroling thing at church as well. I'm really not sure what's happening for it, as I'm not the one overseeing, so I guess I'll just show up and do whatever they tell me to do.

Other than that, I've got to manage my time in a way that I can still prepare a sermon for the coming Sunday. It's going to be weird having to work through Christmas this time around. I'm so used to just sitting at home and relaxing during the last two weeks of each year that I'm somewhat uneager to do it.

Finally, with Christmas also comes the New Year shortly after. I'm so excited for what we'll be implementing at church, but it does seem like there's way too much for me to be realistically keeping track of. I'm overhauling the worship serivce AND the youth group. These two tasks take so much time and energy that I just can't bring myself to looking after the other things that I'm supposed to look after as well. It's going to be a crazy first half of the year, but I hope that once things are in place, I can move my focus onto other things.

I'm so stoked!

If I don't manage another blog post, Merry Christmas to all of my readers! You all make my day and I  love each and every one of you.

Happy Holidays!