Merry Christmas 2025!

Christmas lights through the front door. Christmas Day, 2025.

“Oh my! I don’t usually have more than one, but it is the holidays….” [cue hysterical laughter]

Merry Christmas, y’all! I wish you all the meaning of the day. For the Catholics, and the similarly aligned, we look forward to the 12 Days of Christmas beginning today. To our fellow Christians, we celebrate fraternally, the incarnation of God, the Creator of the Universe. To the rest of America and those who choose to throw in with us, this represents a time vaguely associated with the Solstice that causes the Northern Hemisphere to contemplate the brightening of days, the eventual advent of spring, and a time where we think about love of our fellow humans, the idea we may achieve peace on Earth, and that individuals will find the emotional connection we all seek. (I’m sorry, Southern Hemisphere. I haven’t got anything for you on this one. The days will grow shorter. The warmth will fade away. And in your coldest times you will not have the bright spot of Christmas to look forward to. I’m feeling your pain.)

Our personal Christmas has been especially meaningful to me. My best friend in the choir, a bass like me, died 18 days ago. An ordained priest who left the clergy to pursue a ‘worldly life’, he never stopped being what priests aspire to be (if they are true priests): the lowly shepherds who gather the sheep who stray and return them to the fold. I suppose he never will be venerated, beatified, or sanctified, but he established a spiritual North Star for me, and his death so close to Christmas has rocked me emotionally and spiritually. That I say this day’s mass proved especially moving to me makes me think that the last time I felt this way occurred in 2019 exactly two months after my mother died (and I retired). It’s funny how we imbue meaning into the same annual ritual liturgy.

I approach my faith through music and musical ministry. Thus, the Midnight Mass this year meant I dwelt in the choir loft yet again despite thinking, “How much longer can I stay up until 2 or 3 a.m.?” I reference my comment to my recently departed friend from the bass section who last year at 84 found it a requirement to be in the loft on Christmas Eve, preparing for the first hour of the birth of Jesus. He could not stand for more than 10-15 minutes. He exerted himself to climb the steps to the top riser where the basses reside. Contrary to offering complaint, he climbed with a smile on his face. I kept thinking about him, about my slight musical retreat from participating in what my vocal gift allows me to do, and about how this night above most others enriches the spiritual experience for those who attend but Christmas and Easter.

We presented 45 minutes of music from a brass quintet (plus tympani), two organists using our CB Fisk Opus 147 pipe organ, and the two dozen voices of our choir. I invite you to follow that link to the page describing the organ. It inferentially mentions our cathedral space which remains one of the largest Roman Catholic cathedrals in America, providing space for about 2,000 worshippers.

Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, NC, preparing for Midnight Mass 2025. Two transepts exist to both sides of the altar area. The choir loft, foreground, shows the camera which will transmit a YouTube livestream, the seats and stands for the brass quintet, and is taken from the top riser where the basses sit. Christmas Day 2025.

Not unusually at Christmas, parishioners packed our cathedral.

Here’s a not-unusual detail for folks like me:

Spend Christmas Eve morning planning the logistics for the next 48 hours.
Align meal times with reality
Take a nap for 1-2 hours sometime during the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. timeframe
Shower a second time…perform necessary personal grooming functions
Continue day to its normal concluding time (for seniors), but have dinner just a bit later
About the time one would prepare for bed, prepare to go to church instead
Get to church at 10:45 p.m.
Participate in pre-mass musical program from 11:15-midnight
Support the mass with musical ministray/leadership
When mass ends at 1:30 a.m., engage in social chat, drive home
Arriving home about 2 a.m. or later, and realizing you are far too jazzed to go to sleep, crack a bottle of “Christmas cheer” and calm in the alcoholic-existentialist manner until approximately 3:30 a.m.
Go to bed
Wake on Christmas Day about 8:30-9:00 a.m. Absolutely beat, and with no more than 6.5 hours’ sleep (usually more like 5.0), stumble through a few hours before saying, “Screw it, I’m having a beer, dear.”

There you have it: a raw, day-after download of what this (and many other) Christmas has meant to me. I wish you and yours the merriest of the day. Here on the east coast of the United States, about eight hours remain on Christmas Day. I hope however many you have (or had), they will be/were meaningful.

On the First Day of Christmas…

…this blog gave to me…a discourse meant to bore me…

[a pastiche of thoughts as Christmas begins]

NC Chinese Lantern Festival 2023. December 2023.

Yes, we’re into the Twelve Days of Christmas. Generally Twelvetide runs December 25th through the very end of January 5th, Epiphany beginning on January 6th. (This information primarily comes from Wikipedia.) The Council of Tours created it in 567 AD–and yes, I’m using AD not CE on purpose. For various reasons some Eastern churches celebrate the twelve days starting with the day after Christmas.

Our world generally has forgotten the distinction of seasons, of singular dates. Seasons orient around only the salient events. We don’t appreciate the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas–hell, between Halloween and Christmas–as anything but a lead-up to Christmas Day. I don’t think you have to be a Christian to acknowledge that there just might be something happening between those two dates nearly 60 days apart (besides Thanksgiving). As a Christian, it mystifies me when I try to figure out what Christmas means to the non-religious or non-spiritual person. It seems an inchoate, indefinite span of peace-love-dove (and don’t forget the shopping), marked primarily with traditions whose meanings have been lost to time. Ah, well. This old guy still enjoys pausing to remember all the examples of saints on All Saints Day and all the dearly departed on All Souls. I like to build up to Thanksgiving the way we used to, focusing on the stories (true or not) about how the day’s traditions came into being. I spend the days immediately after Thanksgiving focused on Advent, leaning into the promises of Christmas rather than a bustling, have-I-got-everything-done race to the 25th. This actually handicaps me because I tend to not get things done such as preparing the Christmas newsletter, setting up decorations outdoors, or getting the tree up. On the other hand, I don’t race to do so. Christmas starts on the 25th, and we are in celebration mode now for 12 days. The tree stays up until January 6th; the decorations too.

Christmas Day started at midnight with mass (see here). Two sleep-deprived adults, who retired at 3:30 a.m. and woke about 5.5 hours later, reached for adult beverages sooner than is rational. Fine brews, expense-be-damned, dominated the day: Duvel’s namesake offering; Chimay’s Grand Reserve (the blue label), inexplicably available from Costco every year about this time; N’ice Chouffe from Brasserie D’Achouffe; and Oakspire from New Belgium, a deep amber ale somewhat like a Scottish one, aged in bourbon barrels from Four Roses Distillery. My wife shies away from the dark end of the beer scale; when I shifted to the Oakspire, she went with Sierra Nevada’s Celebration Ale, which has evolved over the past 20 years into a red IPA. If you know anything about these beers, you’ll realize we didn’t have a lot of cares as we approached our festive but subdued meal. I offered up a standard ‘guy meal’ of wedge salad with a homemade blue cheese dressing, thin slices from a 3-inch thick ribeye (seared and minimally roasted), baked russets, and broccolini with pecan butter. (No we don’t do dessert. It’s just a thing.)

My wife and I quit exchanging presents about five years ago. We’ve found Christmas posseses a peculiar dynamic when you don’t have children. You’ve never built up that tradition of mesmerizing the children on Christmas Day. You’ve never sacrificed all year long for those children, welcoming a bit of liberal spending to get a few things you’ve wanted throughout that year. We finally acknowledged an obvious truth: we get what we want when we want it. (Example: my wife accidentally soaked her tablet on December 17th. We replaced it with a purchase three days later, and she set the new one up less than a week after she drowned the previous one. Retired people understand the concept of cash flow.) Christmas gifts are a superfluous thing, coals to Newcastle. Instead we work on intangibles such as vacation plans, entertainment, planning our elevated meals for Twelvetide, and…each other.

That’s where things stand on Boxing Day. We’re looking forward to a near-fortnight of special meals peppering our evening meal plans. Lurking like aspiring actors in the casting office: stuffed quail; a NYD menu of pork, collards, and black-eyed peas with a side of cornbread; a re-run of the Sicilian Swordfish Stew from Christmas Eve; and perhaps some holiday tamales. Okay, no, I’m not going to the effort of tamales, but enchiladas doesn’t sound half bad.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

NC Chinese Lantern Festival

Yesterday four of us experienced the annual Chinese Lantern Festival at the Koka Booth Amphitheatre (which sits at the southern edge of Cary and the eastern edge of Apex in the Raleigh-Cary-Durham Triangle area). I entered with moderate expectations but left with a big appreciation for the spectacle. We purchased the “early twilight entry” tickets for a variety of reasons: chief among them being we’re old, and anything that promises an Early Bird special appeals to oldsters. We wandered for an hour, and then we fulfilled a sudden hankering for East Asian food by driving to a pan-Asian restaurant near our home.

Entrance to the festival. December 2023.

Parasols hung from the roof of the refreshment center. December 2023.

Reflections in Symphony Lake. December 2023.

Dreaming of Thanksgiving

The latest of several T-giving birds on the Bar-B. My friend George oversaw this one as I kibitzed from the sidelines. Bogue Sound, NC. Thanksgiving 2023.

Thanksgiving for me begins with a way-too-early uncorking of some fine grain-based beverage. Lately this has meant something from Belgium or at the very least inspired by that country’s take on beer. Thank goodness Costco always seems to offer up Chimay Blue at a reduced price (though still expensive). Chimay Blue is dark, offering up the darker fruit tastes (currents, raisins) with an undercurrent of chocolate. Being Belgian, it has a surprisingly dry finish. Sure, it’s 9.0% ABV. Isn’t that what it’s all about on a holiday?

This holiday I hope to kindle our first fire in the fireplace. It predicts to be 38 at dawn, rising to ‘only’ 59 on a sunny day here in Raleigh, NC. That might qualify, especially if I leave the nearby door open to the outside deck–our cats will certainly want to enjoy the holiday sunshine.

Though we had thought, “hey, let’s do something different,” and purchased a couple brace of quail, the pull of tradition grabbed us. We’ve shelved those quail plans for another day, and in just moments we will plan our menu for the day, knowing it will revolve around a slow-roasted turkey in the oven. Our theme will still be Southern style: the brined shrimp will provide the midday sustenance needed to get to the main meal which will feature either cornbread or grits. A nod to the North will likely occur also. My wife introduced me to the concept of mashed rutabagas (or turnips) instead of potatoes. And the already-planned butternut squash pie still looks like a go. Licking my lips already…..

Brewery Ommegang

When the tree leaves’ colors change, when Americans ready for Thanksgiving holiday and the mad rush of a Christmas season, my thoughts always turn to a few singular brewers. These brewers produce the quality I demand on my holiday table. Brewery Ommegang is one such brewer. Although this photo is from 2012, we first discovered this brewery a few years after it opened in 1997.

Ironically, there’s a fair chance an Ommegang beer will not grace our holiday fest. Two 750ml bottles of Chimay Grande Reserve await, plus a bottle of Unibroue’s La Fin du Monde (which seems an appropriate beer for our times). Then again… (says the thirsty avaricious one)…