Dear members and friends of the Sodality of Charity,
Thank you to all the Sodalists who attended and helped in our annual St. Lucia procession. Our first one was in 2020, so this was the fourth one we had. Last year we had 15 attendants, and this year 17. My special thanks goes to Claire, who faithfully acted as the girls’ MC (Mistress of Ceremonies) in the first three processions, and who this year handed the office over to her sister Maria.
I said Mass for all Sodality members on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and patroness of the United States.
For me, one of the certain signs that Christmas is very near, is that I put up my Christmas tree. I usually have two trees, one in the house and one in my classroom at the school. In my childhood I always went out with my mom or dad to buy a real tree from a marketplace, but since a real tree would be too much to take care of, I have ever since I moved to St. Gertrude’s used plastic trees. Still, I try to decorate these as well as I can.
While I’m putting up my Christmas trees, I always think the 1995 Muppet TV movie Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree, where Mr. Willowby (Robert Downey Jr.) sends lumberjacks to fetch him a perfect Christmas tree. For Mr. Willowby there can’t be a real Christmas without a perfect tree. In the movie, after the lumberjacks have found a perfect tree, they deliver it to his home while singing a song named We’re Lumberjacks:
We crunch and trudge through ice and snow,
We’re lumberjacks that’s all we know.
We cut and saw and chop and hack,
the perfect tree we whack whack whack!
As usual, I went to our St. Hugh of Lincoln Church in Milwaukee, WI to spend Christmas and say Mass for our people there. We do the midnight Mass and most of the devotions what St. Gertrude’s does there, too. And we also have the children’s party on the feast of Holy Innocents, December 28. This year I read one of the all-time classics, The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen.
At St. Gertrude’s we will have the Sodality Christmas party on Saturday, January 13, from 8 AM to 3 PM. We will again do the white elephant gift exchange, as we did last year. The girls of 12 and under can bring a gift which values between $5 and $10. And the girls who are 13 or older can purchase a gift between $10 and $15. And remember, handmade or even prank gifts are, of course, always a fun add in. We’ll see you there!
Yours in Christ and Mary,
