My two favorite services of the year have to be Christmas Eve and Hanging of the Greens. I just love all the old traditions. Singing carols, placing the evergreens and the wreaths, lighting the advent candles, the candles in the windows and at the ends of the the pews, the children decorating the Christmas tree (one of the memories I have of my church as a small child was putting a white paper decoration on the Christmas tree), placing the poinsettas, hearing the Christmas scriptures and hanging the banners. For some reason, I particularly like the banners and the candles at the ends of the pews. It feels so stately when you walk down the aisle between those candles and the ancient symbols on the walls. And the candles are lit by acolytes with those long lighters--you know the ones, with the little bell-shaped snuffers, while the banners are also hung with the use of poles with hooks on the end. Very old-fashioned. I adore it.

Sunday morning. No, that is not a resident ghost gliding down the aisle, it's our pastor.



Okay, this is coming down the aisle. And yes, I know, it's too blurry to really get the effect of the lines of candles on poles. 
Is there a name for those things, anyway?



From the balcony. I love our church! So pretty. This is like, the one clear shot I took of the sanctuary... :)



That evening, right before the Hanging of the Greens service started. You can see that the Christmas star they hang up in 
December is lit. 



Facing the bottom of the balcony and the back of the sanctuary. Okay, the blurriness on this one is not my fault; it is really 
dark under there and it took the camera a long time to gather light for the photo. The lights on the evergreens were actually only 
blinked on and then off again as I took the photo. You can (barely) see the kissing ball hung under the clock. It's a ball of 
evergreen on red ribbon with two red hoops around it, and underneath is hung another smaller evergreen ball. It's a kind of 
mistletoe thing. If you go to Longwood gardens in December (do!), you'll see plenty of gigantic kissing balls.



Yes, I know, Ashley needs to learn to hold the camera still. The Christmas tree and the chi ro banner, and an (unlit) pew 
candle, with ivy twined up the pole.



The front of the sanctuary, with the creche.



My cousins Emily and Sierra at the "birthday party"