Festival of Lights

Every year in early December, Greensboro has a Friday night of music, food and tree lighting called Festival of Lights.

Ever since Jeff and I have been together, we've never both been off work on that Friday. But this year's Christmas miracle was that we were both off work with no other plans on the night of Festival of Lights. I knew it was going to be cold and crowded, but I told Jeff that even if we were there for 10 minutes, I wanted to go.

So we left our car in the N&R parking lot, hauled Biscuit's stroller out of the trunk, bundled up and walked a couple of blocks to the festival.

Remember that kid in "A Christmas Story" who said, "I can't put my arms down!" Well, that was Biscuit. Check us out.

We left the Festival of Lights and went to a Candle Tea at a co-worker's Moravian Church. Church members dress up in traditional Moravian clothes and they sell crafts, candles, wreaths, chicken pies (made by the church ladies), sugar cookies, sugar cake and other baked goods.

There's a building beside the church that they call the tavern. When you go in, there's a big fire place, a Christmas tree with old-fashioned decorations and lots of candles. They serve pieces of sugar cake and a really sweet, milky coffee. That's a traditional treat for them.

Biscuit missed all of it. He saw so much at the Festival of Lights, that he fell asleep in the car on the way to the Candle Tea.

I couldn't figure out a way to get the sleeping baby into his coat, so I just put him on my shoulder and covered him from head to toe with a thick Winnie the Pooh blanket I had in the car. You could tell there was something draped over my shoulder, but you couldn't see hide nor hair of a baby!

There was a live manger scene in front of the church, including a cute miniature donkey. As I walked past the angel, a man did a double-take and the blanketed bundle in my arms.

"Did you just steal Baby Jesus?" he asked with a smile.

"Yep. I'm taking him home with me," I answered.

We continued on our way until we saw everything there was to see. As we were leaving, I told Jeff that I hate Biscuit wasn't awake so he could see the donkey. Just as the words came out of my mouth, his little head popped up.

I showed him the donkey and with his sleep little eyes, he didn't look too sure about what he should think. I leaned him down and put his hand on the donkey's mane. He felt it for just a second and then jerked his hand back and shot me a look that said, "Why on earth would you make me do something like that?!?"

It was a long, cold, busy night, but it was the first time we had done something like that as a family. It got the Christmas season kicked off right.