Perfect Timing

You may or not know that I am a church decorator.  Have been for nearly 14+ years. This year's Christmas season was a bit of a challenge because we knew that our newest grandson would be arriving and we wanted to be able to skip town and help out the new mom.

This year I was fortunate to have several people volunteer to help me out, particularly after one of the priests announced that I was desperate for help.  I had a plan from the beginning of Dec., so that I could be assured that everything went up according to schedule.

The new baby actually was quite accommodating, arriving at the end of December, after the Church decorating was complete.  This gave  Marty and myself a week to help out the new parents before  leaving for home just in time for the Epiphany, which was the scheduled take down date.

Recently, my husband has been traveling frequently, and he was anxious to have me come along on his next trip, which he scheduled for departure on Jan. 8, the feast of the Epiphany.  At first, I declined, because I wasn't sure when or how long my services would be needed to help out the new parents.  But as the events played out, I was able to get a ticket to accompany Marty on this trip to Scotland.

To pull this off, we had to make the 10 hour drive home, take down our live Christmas tree, do laundry, pay bills, pack and have everything in the car so that we could leave directly from the church take down the next day.

We had a scheduled evening flight, but this required us to leave the area no later than 2:00 to be certain that we would get to the airport on time.  I contacted my help via e-mail, and gave them the details of all that needed to come down and set a time of 1:00, when the noon mass finished, to begin the huge job.  Imagine my surprise when I walked into the church and it was obvious that Mass was no way finished.  The last song wasn't over until 1:20!

O.K., I'll admit that I got a little eager and worked my way through the exiting crowd (I was nice and said excuse me!) to get to the Nativity figures so that I could use many hands to get them carried out of the church.  So, there I was, busily removing figures,  and I see a camera flash.  Groups of people were standing around the Nativity all looking at me as if I had committed murder.  One woman lamented that she didn't get her Christmas photo of the Nativity this year, because of my quick action.

Did I feel bad?  Hell NO!  And you know what?  None of the people who were there to help me felt bad either.  Once we started, nothing was stopping us.  We ran around like crazy people, attempting to get every last item down before Marty and I  needed to hit the road. We accomplished a phenomenal amount in 45 minutes time.  I walked out, as planned, at 2:00 and left the crew to finish things up.

We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  And as I write this, I am sitting in a hotel in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, where the sun was blazing today, the sky was blue, and the air was crisp.  Better enjoy it while I can!