Love time.

Just want to say: I love our condo. Right now, I specifically love the fact that our 8 foot tall Christmas tree doesn't even come close to scraping any part of our ceilings.

Pictures coming. I've been diligently taking pictures, so as soon as that camera cord decides to stop playing hide-and-seek, there's going to be some Christmas decoration love up here. I've also been ridiculously productive over the last two months in as far as making things goes (knitting projects, gifts, Christmas tree skirt, ornaments, etc.) so I'm planning on posting about that later as well. Seriously, it's been a triumph of domesticity over here. I also wrote an article about Christmas for our journal/newsletter (Thought & Sentiment), which I may repost here. Haven't decided yet.

Classes are done on Thursday, and then it will be Christmas break! Woohoo! We're going to try to approximate a Christmas party on Thursday by everyone eating cookies/drinking tea, coffee, hot chocolate, etc. at their computers during class. Eh. We do what we can. Class devotions for the last week or so have been Advent/Christmas themed. We started low-church with Sufjan Steven's "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" (which all my first-year students loved; a few third-year students didn't care for the banjo, stuffy traditionalists that they are...). We were going to listen to a selection from Handel on Thursday, but we encountered some technical issues that day, so we read some Chesterton Christmas poems instead ("The House of Christmas" and "The Wise Men") and discussed them. This morning my third-years listened to "Adam Lay Ybounden" and discussed the concept of felix culpa and "the blessed fruit" (they just finished Augustine and Boethius and will soon be moving into Aquinas, so it seemed appropriate). I think I'll try some Handel today for my first-years since they are less likely to have encountered it already, and "Adam Lay Ybounden" is a bit above their level at this point (plus, I don't even want to imagine the phone calls I'd get from their parents afterward...). Thursday for both classes is going to be "O Magnum Mysterium." Their heads will explode from all the beauty. It's going to be awesome. Especially for the first-years, who are discussing Abolition of Man right now...I can't wait. I love Christmas!

Time to catch up on my grading. Work now, holiday later.

A