Frozen!

Saturday 24 December
Our day started after breakfast, as it always does on Christmas Eve, listening to the Service of Lessons and Carols from Kings College. The temperature reached a little higher today - 12 degrees F (-11 C), still with overcast skies. However, we all felt we needed to get out of the house, so once the broadcast was finished, we donned layers, hats and gloves, and ventured out to the gorge at Sharon Woods to see the frozen waterfalls and icicles - quite impressive, when you think it was all free flowing two days ago! We didn’t walk for too long, as even with our layers, it was still cold, but it still felt good to be out in the fresh air, and we treated ourselves to hot chocolate with some Baileys when we got home!
By then it was about 3 pm and Roger and Laura got busy preparing the luminaries that our neighbourhood always does on Christmas Eve, while I started preparing dinner. However as they were putting them out they noticed no one else was doing theirs. So when we were having our early dinner, Roger checked his email to see if there’d been a message canceling it, and sure enough there was a message, sent out about the time they were putting them out, saying they were postponing it till New Years Eve. We thought it was such a shame as they look so nice against the snow, but we thought it especially poor that the message was sent out so late, after all, the frigid temperatures have been forecast for days! After dinner, it was time to drive to church for a quick run through with choir and bells before the Christmas Eve Service at 7.30. It was a wonderful service, with a variety of music, the choir piece and carols accompanied by orchestra, and two pieces sung by the Praise Band. Silent Night was sung as always to individually held candles.