Friday, December 24, 2010
Dec. 24th, 2010 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortySo I woke up at 3:30 at night and I realized that my mind was just too busy to fall back asleep easily. So I turned on my laptop and worked in bed until about 5am and then went back to sleep. That was certainly interesting. I wrote a page and I think that calmed my brain down.
Today is Christmas Eve so Bear came to pick me up at one since we needed to get to his house early enough to start cooking our Christmas seafood lasagna. We sort of started this tradition maybe five years ago and we make it together every Christmas Eve. It is a recipe from Betty Crocker cookbook with crab meat, shrimp, and lots of cheese. And it is always delicious. Bear’s Mom also made a Russian salad – olivie salad, as we call it. (This is a traditional Russian holiday salad with potatoes, eggs, carrots, pickles, peas, boiled meat, onion and mayonaise. My mother always sent some to Bear’s Mom after New Year holidays and his parents really like it. So Bear’s Mom asked for a recipe and today was the first time she made it too.) We had a really nice dinner with Bear’s parents and sister and good Christmas cookies for desert too.
Then I joined Bear’s family for the Christmas Eve mass. They are Catholic (well, Bear is agnostic now) and this is one time a year I go to church, mostly for them. I don’t mind it really, there is pretty decorations and familiar Christmas songs that are all over the radio and my medieval brain likes to pretend it went back in time even though I know that medieval churches didn’t have seats for people and that the altar was behind the rood screen and the priest faced away from the people. Still, the ceremony and many rituals are pretty similar. It is certainly a part of my secular ritual. I am Jewish but I am more of a social Jew, I like the connection to the past. I’m mostly atheist and I grew up in an officially atheist country. Religion fascinates me on an academic level. Four things from today’s 10 o’clock mass.
• I can’t sit through “Angels We Have Heard On High” anymore without thinking of Feist on the Colbert Christmas singing that song as God’s answering service. So there is some snickering.
• They had “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” in Latin under the English in the prayer book so it was great to review my Latin. It was an easy translation too.
• The cantor was amazing. He has this wonderful deep baritone voice that is really pleasant to listen too.
• Without ever consciously learning it, I know “Our Father” prayer both in English and in Russian because of random exposure to it in Western culture. It is a nice prayer and I don’t mind knowing it or even saying it.
Today is Christmas Eve so Bear came to pick me up at one since we needed to get to his house early enough to start cooking our Christmas seafood lasagna. We sort of started this tradition maybe five years ago and we make it together every Christmas Eve. It is a recipe from Betty Crocker cookbook with crab meat, shrimp, and lots of cheese. And it is always delicious. Bear’s Mom also made a Russian salad – olivie salad, as we call it. (This is a traditional Russian holiday salad with potatoes, eggs, carrots, pickles, peas, boiled meat, onion and mayonaise. My mother always sent some to Bear’s Mom after New Year holidays and his parents really like it. So Bear’s Mom asked for a recipe and today was the first time she made it too.) We had a really nice dinner with Bear’s parents and sister and good Christmas cookies for desert too.
Then I joined Bear’s family for the Christmas Eve mass. They are Catholic (well, Bear is agnostic now) and this is one time a year I go to church, mostly for them. I don’t mind it really, there is pretty decorations and familiar Christmas songs that are all over the radio and my medieval brain likes to pretend it went back in time even though I know that medieval churches didn’t have seats for people and that the altar was behind the rood screen and the priest faced away from the people. Still, the ceremony and many rituals are pretty similar. It is certainly a part of my secular ritual. I am Jewish but I am more of a social Jew, I like the connection to the past. I’m mostly atheist and I grew up in an officially atheist country. Religion fascinates me on an academic level. Four things from today’s 10 o’clock mass.
• I can’t sit through “Angels We Have Heard On High” anymore without thinking of Feist on the Colbert Christmas singing that song as God’s answering service. So there is some snickering.
• They had “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” in Latin under the English in the prayer book so it was great to review my Latin. It was an easy translation too.
• The cantor was amazing. He has this wonderful deep baritone voice that is really pleasant to listen too.
• Without ever consciously learning it, I know “Our Father” prayer both in English and in Russian because of random exposure to it in Western culture. It is a nice prayer and I don’t mind knowing it or even saying it.