Rural Adjustments

We had to get dressed up on Saturday night for the Easter Vigil Mass at church*, during which A. was baptized and confirmed. These sacraments take place during the service and required the whole family to be processing down the center aisle and very much on display. So I thought I should probably make the boys wear actual shoes. As opposed to their snow boots, that is, which is what they usually wear to church this time of year.

Everyone else wears boots to church, too. It's kind of a necessity when there's three feet of snow on the ground.

Anyway.

The boots are fine normally, but they are awfully loud. Those three boys stomping their way up the aisle sound like an invading army. Not exactly the solemn procession the priest was envisioning, I'm pretty sure.

Getting from our car into the church isn't a problem, as there are cleared sidewalks in the village. Getting from our house to the car, however? That's 30 feet of mud, ice, and snow. In other words, shoe-destroying territory.

For that reason, A. put on his muck boots and carried each boy out to the car individually when we left. He left his muck boots on and changed into his dress shoes when we got to church. And I wore my snow boots until we got in the car at home, at which point I changed into high heels. Because traversing the path to the car in high heels would be even stupider than doing it in regular shoes.

It was a very nice service, though, and we all looked pretty good. No mud anywhere.

The only photo I have of most of the family was taken by eight-year-old Cubby in a dim house past the baby's bedtime. Which is why it looks like this:

Pretty much her mood during the entire two-hour service.

I hate to leave you with that image, though, so let's end with this one, instead:

Much better.

* This is a two-hour (or longer) church service that starts after dark so the service can begin in a dark church with an open fire in it. The fire is contained in a metal basin, but still. Open fire. It was a real challenge with four little kids, but was definitely a neat experience. It was the most concrete example I've ever seen of the way Christianity borrowed rituals from more-ancient religions.