Bowling, caroling and pizza

I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done.  I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High.  Psalm 9:1-2 (NLT)


When I was a youngin' I have fond memories of our church family caroling and then meeting back at the church for soup and sandwiches.  It was something we did annually for a while and then at some point, it stopped.  I can't tell you when or why.

A few years ago, I was thinking about those memories and decided I would try to organize a caroling party with our church family.  The date selected was the first Sunday in December.  A list of houses to carol was made and a sheet with the lyrics was passed out.  Because we have some shut-in's in Robinson, it seemed only logical that we would end the party with pizza at Monicals (my absolute favorite restaurant in the whole-wide world). 

This new tradition has continued.  We have caroled in the snow, ice, wind and rain.  I suppose we are either very dedicated to caroling to our church members or we will use any excuse whatsoever to eat at Monicals.  No comments, please :)

This year we (the high school/college youth) had already planned on going bowling on the first Sunday in December.  I didn't even think about it being the Sunday we carol when we picked that date.  So we incorporated the two events into one big day...I called it an all-day church extraveganza.  I also now realize I may often be a little too much of an over-achiever.  I'm all about cramming things in to make it work and boy, did we.  (Whoa, sometimes I wonder what I am thinking!)

We went ahead and invited all of the church family, young or old, to eat and go bowling with us before caroling.  We brought lunch meat, chips and snacks for lunch and ate immediately following worship...then headed straight to the bowling alley in Marshall where we bowled for two hours.  We have some church members living in Marshall and also some church friends in the nursing homes over there so that is where we began caroling.  Then we proceeded onto the big city of Martinsville and then headed south on our caroling adventure.

On the way to Robinson one of our youth had a little mishap with a curve, some loose gravel and her car.  It was quite scary for the kids in her car and the car in front of them.  (For me too as I turned around not knowing what I was going to find.)  I am thankful that God was watching out for those kids, no one was injured and the car was untouched.  Just a little snag in our day.  We persevered.

We ended our caroling trek at the home of one of our oldest members.  She will be turning 102 or 103, I believe, this next year.  She is just the sweetest little thing.  We have visited her house every year and she is always delighted to see us.  In addition to caroling her, we presented her with an award our CPWM gives out each year at Ingathering and I took her picture with the plaquerd.  She knew about receiving the award in November but was tickled to see her name and the special stone placed by it.

And as always, we finished our all day extraveganza at Monicals.  The food was delicious and the fellowship was fun.  It was certainly exhausting, but a very rewarding day.  Unfortunately, that was the beginning of our week of the sickies and by the end of that evening, Lane and I were feeling pretty crummy.  There were 46 of us this year and I can think of some that had to miss due to family issues.  We were told that one lady we caroled had never ever been caroled before!  Hearing that was an added bonus. 

Mark your calendars, the first Sunday of December 2012, we'll be gathering for our annual caroling/pizza event.  Join us for a fun day of fellowship and praising the birth of our Savior in song!