Today was the 4th Sunday of Advent and there should be a week before Christmas, but because of the calendar this year the 4th week of Advent is just one day, 24 December. That meant after the Advent mass today, we had to decorate for the Christmas Eve mass tomorrow. I had a raised anxiety level about how that was going to happen since Fr. Bob Wynne had taken care of the decorating in the past, but a wonderful group of parishioners stepped forward and decorated St. Joseph Church this evening.
The decorating group arrived at St. Joseph Church about 4:30 PM and the teenagers started unpacking Christmas tree ornaments.Jacqueline turned her attention to the eight banners around the walls of the church hall.Rita and Ann surveyed all the different flowers, trees, banners, and decorations they pulled from the storeroom and started thinking how and where to place them.Bede focused his attention on the mass of colorful flowers we had gathered for possible use at Christmas. We had far too many to use them all.Ann and Rita started off with the altar, replacing the violet altar cloths of Advent with white ones for the Christmas season.When we finally decided on the location for the large Christmas tree, everyone contributed to decorating the tree.To fill up some empty spaces in the back of the hall, Bede and Rita hung two simple Khmer-style banners.
