Five Golden Rings! (Or, Five Undone Things!)

Here I am with my first foray into the Friday Five in Forever. (I honestly have no idea what that was about...)

As posted by Songbird at RevGalBlogPals:

It's true.

There are only five full days before Christmas Day, and whether you use them for shopping, wrapping, preaching, worshiping, singing or traveling or even wishing the whole darn thing were over last Tuesday, there's a good chance they will be busy ones.

So let's make this easy, if we can: tell us five things you need to accomplish before Christmas Eve.

1. Clean the house. Or, at least, get the bins with the Christmas ornaments to the attic, get the bags of presents upstairs to the "wrapping room" (aka Magdalene's bedroom), get the schoolbooks and papers and dvd's (oh my!) that seem to follow Petra around filed somehow, and then, when Larry-O comes home with his piles-o-stuff, get that incorporated into his room again. Oh, and clean out two closets that are the cartoon-type scary-full, if you open the door stuff leaps out at you. And keep vaccuming up needles (grrrr...)

2. Write the Christmas Eve meditation and the Longest Night (many of you call it "Blue Christmas" meditation) and the bulletin for the 28th and the sermon for the 28th (or, perhaps, decide to have a carol sing on the 28th. That could work!).

3. Buy stocking-stuffers. Also, decide if what I've got for Larry and Petra is "enough." I have a problem in this area. I just can't seem to... you know... figure out this balance. A post divorce thing, perhaps, wanting Christmas to be abundant and not paltry... and not having the nerve to talk to them, perhaps, about money and cutting back... eek, this is turning all psychotherapeutic...

4. Shop for dinner fixings for Christmas day. (Christmas eve I'll be working until midnight; seems a good time for Chinese take-out, don't you think?). I'm thinking: Filet mignon (with bernaise for those who are so inclined), some kind of fabulous potatoes, a lovely green salad, and a dessert I haven't figured out yet. Figgy pudding? Could be fun, except neither of my pumpkins would touch it with a ten foot candy cane. Something chocolate seems more likely to be well-received. Not a traditional feast by any means. I'll take a poll in the next few days and see if that's what people want.

5. Get back to my daily prayer practice of early Advent. Especially crucial since lots of illnesses and diagnoses are happening in the congregation... I'm feeling tapped out in some ways. No real days off for a while, and that's always a problem. When I manage to pray... it makes all the difference. Yesterday my only prayer was at a hospital bedside, and it struck me at the time how hungry I was for it.

Abundant blessings to you, my friends!