December 2024

• The header is my design for the four Sundays of Advent. All of them were in December this year!

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary blog for December

• Friday 06 December :: donut and celestial seasonings tea in the same red cup as October's. Did I mention the Asian-owned Los Amigos Donut Shop? This is Los Angeles!

• Saturday 07 December :: Advent and Christmas decorating, lunch, and games at the West Los Angeles church

• Saturday 14 December :: Christmas Tree Decorating, Lunch, and Concert at Christ the King in Torrance. I'm opening with red poinsettias and a solo Christmas Tree. I wish I'd counted how many trees there were! This is one of the only ones I captured with a fairly clean background.

• They served lunch in the narthex—my fave, build your own sandwich with condiments, etc. We ate at tables around the labyrinth.

• The lovely concert featured two keyboard players on both piano and organ and a vocalist. We had dessert afterwards, and I won a consolation prize of a Nativity ornament in the drawing.

• If you use google photos you may know they provide templates we can use to create collages, and google AI sometimes makes surprise collages using templates not available to the general public (that would be us). This 15-picture arrangement provides a perfect overview of the day.

• Monday 16 December :: Los Angeles has some stunning sunsets, but I'm not often there to see them and I sometimes don't trust my phone camera enough. It was almost the winter solstice when I captured this nearby sky.

• Tuesday 24 December :: Christmas Eve at Mount Olive ELCA in Santa Monica; I was organist for the German service and then I attended the family service with music by the semi-resident jazz band. This is another google AI collage that perfectly expresses the mood around campus.

• Wednesday 25 December :: Christmas Day worship and a sumptuous dinner at LA Bread of Life Foursquare Church in mid city LA. It's an actual storefront!

• Wednesday evening 25 December :: Christmas evening dinner in Inglewood—no pictures

• The First Sunday of Christmas 29 December :: Informal Lessons and Carols and Eucharist in West LA—no pictures

• Monday 30 December the Sixth Day of Christmas :: mid-afternoon lunch with friends; here are two views of our salad