Snowy Friday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around the RP household! Not only did I get ambitious yesterday and haul down three boxes of Christmas decorations (which now adorn the house), but I've been playing Christmas music on the stereo and--it snowed five inches last night! Our neighbor's teeny tiny evergreen looks like a Christmas card with the snow on its branches perfectly rounded and smooth. It just needs a tiny cardinal or bunny to make it complete. It almost makes me want to go Christmas shopping!
DP has discovered a shop in town that sells goods from the Third World, with proceeds going directly back to the artisans. Finances aren't going to permit a lot of gifts this year, but I plan on visiting it for most of the gifts I do give. I wonder if they have anything for a 17-year old boy? TO's list is mostly electronic this year. Sigh.

Top Christmas CDs in my special Christmas CD box:

• Mannheim Steamroller (several of theirs; they have a great catalog too, and I lust after their parka!)
• Handel: A Soulful Celebration (a reinterpretation of the Messiah--great stuff!)
• Chicago: Christmas (an unforgettable rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town")
• Natalie Cole Christmas
• Sax Winterlude
• John Rutter's Christmas Music (one of my favorite modern sacred music composers)

Other random thoughts:
I'm not preaching this Sunday; our host pastor and his wife (also a pastor) are going to preach a dialogue sermon. It's wonderful how things worked out--I had asked him to preach for me because we have a bingo event on Sunday afternoon after church, and I'll need to be fairly alert, thus need to conserve energy (and preaching takes it out of me!). He and his wife rarely get to preach together, and so this is an opportunity for them as well. See? Benefits all around!
Because I have this Sunday off, I was hoping to use the extra time this week to get ahead of things--plan worship for January, select Scriptures for the year, start the sermon for week after next, that sort of thing. Did not work (see above, with home decorating and snow to be shoveled). I've gotten some other planning done, however. And I keep reminding myself, it's not always possible to finish every job all at once. Sometimes you work on something for a little while, then come back to it later, especially if you're waiting for input from someone else. It's the waiting, I guess.
So I guess I'll work on the Scriptures for a while, then the sermon,. Maybe neither one will be finished, but they'll be closer to it than they are now--and closer than they would be if I didn't do anything at all!