I am falling behind in my countdown…
we’ve got 4 days to go, but since Christmas Eve is what we are really anticipating, it’s actually 3 days.
Last evening I visited the Fairgrounds to see how things were progressing. What I discovered were dozens and dozens of member-ministers helping to set up….including about 50 high school students, which was especially impressive.
It turns out that much of the set up is done by our parishioners, we don’t hire a lot of outside vendors to do the work. That means we save a lot of money in the process. But more than that, of course, and much more importantly, they are making an investment in our Christmas outreach, and it is incredibly encouraging to see them do it.
There were guys erecting the altar and laying the carpet, a group of ladies stringing lights on Christmas Trees, another group arranging the crèche. A group of high school girls were having way too much fun preparing candles for the candle lighting service (about 7,000 candles) and some high school boys were hauling a bunch of stuff around (not actually sure what they were doing). Besides productive, it was festive and fun.
We have teams working everyday, and evenings too, leading up to Christmas. I’m guessing that it takes about a 1,000 people to make our Christmas Eve celebration happen. At Nativity, that is not at all a problem. Thanks to all who are making it happen.
