Happy Christmas

I went to a lovely Christmas service at St. Mary RedCliffe in Bristol tonight. I just love cathedrals, whether Catholic, Church of England or Episcopal. This church has beautiful sounding bells that ring and ring and ring. The inside of the church is beautiful, the huge vaulted ceilings and everything, and for much of the service the lights were off, except for a few free-standing candles, and then everyone holds their own candle. (it's a good idea really, you can't fall asleep in church with a candle-first there's the safety issue, plus fire is just too interesting) The candles are kind of magical and the whole thing has an aura that is different than when lights are at full bright, even when they turned them up so everyone could sing, it was still very soft and nice. The choir was amazing. There were lots of sing along moments, which I loved, because I love to sing. But did you know that a lot of the Christmas carols have the same words, but different tunes in England than in America? It's true. I had to be very careful. Fortunately Miss Jarman taught me how to sing like a British person back in high school (never thought I would thank her), so I fit in pretty good pronunciation-wise, except when they sang Beth-LE-hem.