On Christmas morning I experienced my first-ever Catholic Mass. I enjoyed it a lot. I was glad to be there with friends who helped me navigate through the service, though, because I would have been lost on my own.
That afternoon and evening we attended a family Christmas party, where I had the surreal experience of watching a nanobug escape from its habitrail and scurry into a hole in the wall. It became trapped just out of reach, where it buzzed, loudly and indignantly, for the rest of the night. First world problems, man. But the party was great, nanobug infestations notwithstanding.
The following evening my friends and I rode atop a 1950s British double-decker bus on a tour of neighborhood Christmas lights.
The bus is owned by a mortuary, and bore this reassuring notice:
The tour was amazing. We stopped and sang “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” outside a few of the best-decorated homes.
The bus went all the way down to the Mission Inn in Riverside, where it parked for an hour while we wandered around admiring the lights and festivities.
We sang every Christmas carol we could think of, all the way down to Riverside and all the way back up. People on the streets waved and honked and called “Merry Christmas!” to us, and we waved and shouted it back to them. The whole thing was wonderful fun.
Next up: my geocaching adventures!
