2001-12-10-7:51 p.m.

I really like getting presents before Christmas. I've already gotten two and they were from people who didn't even know they were giving them to me.

The first one couldn't have come at a better time. I had had a hard day and I needed a present. I had already had the children all by myself for two days and was going on the third and Abby announced that she didn't have her uniform for choir - she'd have to show up at the college a little early (They were all meeting to go out of town for a performance.) and see if she could get a dress out of the choir room before everyone left.

She didn't make it. She didn't get a ride. She didn't get a uniform. The whole school was locked up tight. She came home and put on my nice black dress and said she would just wear that. "I don't think so," I said. "You all have to look the same." And besides, mutter, mutter, that's my dress!

Her boyfriend and I thought and thought of who we could possibly ask to open the choir room for her. Finally, Abby called the president of the college who just happened to have lived next door to my parents for many years. "Mention that, Abby. Tell them who your granddad is!"

He did come and let her in and she got her dress and then I had to drive her to Goliad to find the rest of her choir. "Which mission, Abby?" She didn't know, so of course we went to the wrong one first and walked right into the end of a re-enactment of some battle. We felt like we were walking onto a movie set - as extras - very fast-moving extras. Okay, this must not be the right place, but the colonel was very kind and helpful, don't you think, Abby?

On to the next mission. Abby told me to drive up the back way which was a narrow, rocky road. I got halfway up and decided I didn't want to do that, so we backed up and found a parking space, jumped out and hurried across the street and up the steps to the chapel. That's when I got my first present.

Relief at finally having Abby where she was supposed to be mixed with wonder at what I heard when I stepped in the doorway where the choir was practicing. They were singing Away in a Manger and the familiar notes filled the little domed chapel until there was hardly room for me to stand there and listen. The sounds were so warm and they surrounded me, seeming to not only be going into my ears but into all of me. I felt it and couldn't walk another step. "And fit us for heaven to live with thee there."

The bad day melted away. I didn't feel tired anymore and suddenly, it was Christmas!

Ah. Thank you, whoever built this lovely little church, and whoever figured out how to create such great acoustics. Thank you, whoever arranged that hymn just so. Thank you, choir. Thank you, choir director for choosing so well. They don't even know - all those people - that they made Christmas happen for me this year. I can't think of this first present without getting tears in my eyes.

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