God's way of saying "Merry Christmas, Marianna. Thanks for coming back!"

I made my last entry a bit prematurely. I had assumed that most of the noteworthy happenings had already, well, happened. Rookie mistake, I completely forgot that Christmas Eve mass always brings the crazy.

I'm not sure what it is, but I can never make it through Christmas Eve mass without cracking up or in some other way completely offending Jesus and fellow church-goers. When I was younger and more immature I usually spent the entire mass making faces at my friend who was inevitably sitting directly across the church from us. He, as a good Catholic, would not acknowledge my ridiculousness and remained stoic throughout church. This infuriated me and made me even more determined to crack him. This always ended with my mom giving me a quick smack to the arm and a stern look. On the rare occasions I did crack him I would have the added obstacle of fighting the urge to raise my arms in victory. 

Three years ago I had the glorious moment of sitting behind Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block. This was before they got back together and made music videos involving them macking on girls young enough to be their illegitimate daughters. If you thought I was going to pay attention with him sitting right in front of me, I'm sorry but you are sorely mistaken. You guys don't believe me, I can tell. I kid you not, Joey McIntyre, in front of me, church. December 24th, 2006. 

Two years ago I made the mistake of wearing my thick woolen socks with my new pair of Uggs. It was not that cold to begin with and the packed church was warm. Around the prayer of the faithful I found myself going down. I finished mass barefoot that night.

Last year was the most epic of the Christmas Eve Mass fiascos, or so I thought. We went to my grandmothers church which featured a choir of late middle aged/early senior singers and a very old priest. The choir got me giggling with their attempts at gospel music. Many tried to get into it and be perky while others were clearly offended that someone would mess with their traditional songs and responding by remaining completely emotionless during the song. Hard to describe, but trust me, hilarious to watch. Then the priest started talking and it was all downhill from there. Snails have moved faster than the man talked. Every. Word. Was. Given. Equal. Time. And. Emphasis. He really nailed it home when he asked us all to say the lords prayer, then paused and added "verrrrrrrrry slowwwwwwwly". I started shaking but tried to hold it in. Next to me I noticed my sister was falling down. I was shocked to see her cracking up as she's usually pretty reliable for being stoic. I had been banned from sitting next to OMP due to an unfortunate behavioral incident at a wedding earlier in the year, my mother apparently thought Caroline would be able to keep me in line. This plan backfired and the combination of the priests request and Caroline trying to hold in her laughter were too much. I dissolved into laughter and had to sit down with my head between my legs to cover up the tears streaming down my face. I didn't think it could be topped.

God has a sense of humor, it seems, as this year he gave me my own personal Christmas gift.

I honestly went into church being careful not to make a fool out of myself. I kept going over possible circumstances and how I would deal with them. If I went into a coughing fit I would excuse myself until I regained composure. If the priest made an unintended sexual innuendo during his homily I would not yell out "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID" or even giggle. I would be allowed a small smile. Under no circumstances would I be allowed to make eye contact with OMP as that would undoubtably lead to a colossal failure of composure. I was going to make it through mass and make Jesus proud of me for once. 

We started mass with a sing-a-long of Christmas carols with the children's choir. Under Silent Night, the hymnal listed lyrics for English, Spanish and German translations. I asked OMP if he would like to sing the German version with me, we chuckled and began our off key howling in English. At precisely the same moment we both switched over to German, hoping to throw the other person off. Instead we just began the giggles. I thought this was the end. I panicked, the priest hadn't even walked down the aisle and I was already laughing. I regained composure and made it through the sing-a-long. The priest began his procession, swinging his incense dispenser the whole time. I spotted a problem, as you may have read I currently have the plague. As my asthmatic sister began to wheeze a bit, I realized this might spell doom for me and my injured lungs. I concentrated on not coughing, and succeeded, however I noticed that the room was really a lot smokier than usual. The people across the church were getting hazy, I was either going down again or the incense smoke was out of control. The choir began to sing again and I got my answer as the piano accompaniment was joined by the wail of the church fire alarm. I cracked up, openly, as I assumed this was a laughable moment. Lighthearted, ha ha ha, no harm done, right? Nope, the choir just sings louder, I assume they thought they could drown out the sound of the alarm. The congregation stares ahead, some joining in the song, others looking at the priest with looks of "now look what you've done!". Lots of hostility. OMP is shaking, trying not to laugh. Caroline is cracking up with me, thank you Caroline. Mom is smiling but worried about the feelings of the children's choir, so she joins the group that is singing loudly. The song, O Come All Ye Faithful if I remember correctly, is going on forever. They are making up verses, they have to be, there were at least 6 verses sung, only 3 listed in the hymnal. I wasn't laughing as hard as I wanted to be because I was hoping for one specific moment. You see the church is directly across from the fire station. I assumed that it was protocol to answer any alarms at any building. I was just waiting for the town alarm to go off and for the volunteer firemen who were in the church to run across the street to get their truck only to run back. I had an elaborate plan of how it was going to go, and it was going to be epic. My dreams were ruined, however, when the head priest, who was not saying mass, emerged from...somewhere...to the pulpit and with a perfectly straight face said "Don't panic, it's only the incense" before returning to his batcave.  Um, duh? No one was panicking. If I had to name all of the emotions in the room at that moment, panic would not even make the list. The choir keeps singing, we're on verse 24 by this point. The alarms are going off, I'm bitter that the fire department won't be coming, everyones getting a little testy...Caroline's still laughing. Finally the alarm stops, the mood lightens...THE CHOIR KEEPS SINGING, after verse 576 they finally stopped and allowed the priest to continue on his merry way. 

The rest of mass was conducted in a perfectly acceptable manner. I offended everyone around me by refusing to shake their hands during the offering of the sign of peace. Instead I offered "Merry Christmas, I have the plague, you don't want to shake my hand". I figured that the fact that I had been hacking into my hand all mass long would have warned them that they shouldn't shake it. Nope, they instead replied with "oh...well then...Merry Christmas?" before turning around in a huff. I'm sorry, I'm sick, you're elderly, I don't want this to end badly. Apparently it is in better taste to anonymously give someone the plague than it is to think about their health. My bad, next time I have some form of communicable disease I'll make sure to follow social standards rather than health standards. 

This entry was way longer than I thought it would be, this is only half of what I wanted to say. As I just took some Tylenol PM and am now in the process of passing out/wigging out, I'm going to save the rest for a later entry. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Have a fun "week in between holidays"!