midnight

I let the time get away from me tonight watching YouTube videos about sewing machines (Caroline wants one for Christmas, and the clock is ticking), so this will have to be short. Today was a better day. I tidied up the main part of the house and washed the floors. And made lunch, and walked Christopher to his recorder lesson, and looked at period underpants on the internet with Caroline (for as long as we could stand it, which wasn't long), and ordered the kids some pyjamas, and made dinner. It was all very normal and calm. I could use more days like this. 

Time for my very favorite calming Christmas song lyric of all time, verse 3 of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear*:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

I haven't posted this yet, right? They are building a new school across the park from us and one of the cranes in the building site has sprouted this candle, which stays on all night long. It's kind of surreal.

*As I said, it's late, and I can't find a YouTube video that both contains my favorite verse AND has the American version of the hymn, so this will have to do. I distinctly remember how betrayed I felt when I attended my first carol sing-along in the UK and the tune was different. What strange new reality is this??