The Castle and the Angel

One of the gifts I gave my mother this year was a visit to Lyndhurst. My father, Marina and Sierra went along. I was bit worried because you needed to make reservations to tour the mansion, and it had snowed significantly Saturday night. Luckily, we weren't hit too hard. My parents, 25 minutes south of us, had to dig their car out of 12 inches of snow plus whatever slush the plows pushed against it. I'm glad they were able to go. It's a beautiful, castle-like Gothic mansion along the Hudson River. For the holidays, all of the rooms were decorated in fairy tale themes and costumed storytellers related the stories that inspired each room. No pictures were allowed inside, but they did get some nice ones outside and in the entrance hall...

The day ended with a beautiful sunset over the Hudson.



On Christmas eve, the children in our parish perform the Christmas pageant. Chase is too old for it now, so he did some volunteer work, helping the little ones to remember their cues during rehearsal. This was Sierra's first year, so she was one of the angels. Here she is getting ready to leave our house...

and then in the midst of the other little angels...

I always get choked up at the pageant. Especially when they bring out the baby. This year's Jesus had a lot of hair on his head and babbled along with the songs. So cute! At one point his crown popped off and one of the older angels (Gabriel I think) picked it up to put it back on the baby's head. It was a very beautiful pageant. After mass, Chase got this beautiful picture of his little sister...