2018年12月23日 星期日

We Are Ready for Christmas!

#2018-1223

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. And tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Are we all ready for Christmas? ...

Last year (2017) Christmas Eve fell on Sunday and we at St. James' had an English service followed by a Chinese service in the morning, and then a bilingual combined service in the evening, in which we sang Christmas Lullaby and I read an English poem entitled "The Shepherd's Carol" as well as my Chinese translation of it. I enjoyed everything we did in the celebrations.

This year (2018) Christmas Eve is on Monday, a normal workday here in Taiwan. Still, we have a bilingual combined service, starting at 7:30 p.m. -- two hours later than last year's "Christmas Stories and Carols." However, it seems that we are all ready for Christmas now!

On the day before Christmas Eve, we've come to St. James' to have our English service at 11:00 a.m. (On this particular Sunday the Chinese service started at 9:30 a.m. instead, for they wanted to have plenty of time for "street carols" right after the service!) During the English service the choir (led by Hans Geiger) sang Ave Verum Corpus and Carol of the Bells as celebrations. Moreover, as soon as the service finished, we moved to Daphne and D. J. Wang's home (near St. James') to have a Potluck lunch. Oh, we've just have a marvelous fantastic meal here. What a great joy it has been to us to be part of this wonderful community!

Thanks to EVERYONE who has participated 
in this Potluck lunch; special thanks 
to Elaine Lai and Claire Wang 
for sharing these photos.









































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