Let me tell you about our Christmas...Part I

~About a week and a half before Christmas, the director of the preschool that rents space in our basement showed me a big wet spot on the carpet and a leak in the pipe that runs along the wall. It's a steam pipe for the heating system and we had to replace a big hunk of it on the other side of the building just about this time last year. Big sigh...we called the plumber and the news kept getting worse. Turns out we have to replace that pipe on the whole length of the building--through the preschool and the food bank beside.  it.The only good news is that the work can be done between Christmas and New Year's while the preschool is closed.

~The Friday just a week  before Christmas, even as the plumber is still giving us an estimate to replace the steam pipe, I look out the window to see a truck from the company that services our boilers in the parking lot. Not good, I think, and later I go over to see what's up. Seems like someone had noticed a lot of steam coming from our chimney and suggested we should get it checked, and sure enough, one of the two main boilers has gone kerfluey and will have to be replaced. The heating guys fix it so one boiler can heat the church for the weekend, and promise to try to get a new boiler in before Christmas.  On Sunday the church is chilly but bearable with just one boiler running. [There is a third boiler but it only heats my office and the church school space upstairs.]

~It takes longer to get a new boiler than we expected but with the one boiler keeping things bearable, we think we'll be okay. Then on Thursday, the day before Christmas Eve, I walk into a freezing church and the maintenance guy says, "Ready for some more bad news?"  Yes, indeed, the second main boiler--the one that is only two years and 25 days old--has failed. We have NO heat in the church or the Parish Hall. And no hope of getting either boiler repaired before Christmas.

~Meanwhile it's getting colder outside, and snow is forecast for the weekend. It's about 40 F in the church and I'm not sure whether to be more worried about the pipes all freezing in an unheated building or folks coming into a freezing building for Christmas Eve services. After consulting with the senior warden, I decide there is no choice but to cancel all the services for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the first Sunday after Christmas--heartbreaking but I see no alternatives. We briefly discuss renting space heaters but fear that they would overload our electrical circuits. There is a large fireplace in the Parish Hall and someone suggested that we just build a roaring fire and gather round that on Christmas Eve but I am skeptical.

~The brand new office manager who has spent her first week perfecting the many Christmas bulletins (which are now superfluous) emails and calls everyone in our directory to give them the news and I call my friend the priest who happens to be the priest-in-charge of the church in the next town over, and ask her if we might join them for Christmas services.

~If there is any good news in this whatsoever it's that the second boiler was likely defective from the beginning and we shouldn't have to pay for it. At that news I'm ready to sing the Hallelujah chorus. And the almost sort of good news is that I can abandon my sermon writing, freeing up some time for other things--like wrapping presents and SLEEP.

~So on Christmas Eve I drive to church [and that's the first time since I moved to NYC for seminary that I've driven to work for services b/c I've always been able to walk] and join the neighboring congregation for a lovely service. WW and Mr. WW and the Kid are there, and baby M sits on my lap as we watch the Christmas pageant. I return the next day, and the next [it's the perfect storm of Christmas with services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday] and some of our parishioners attend as well. It's different but it gives me a new perspective on Christmas services...and lots to think about churches and buildings. And as I drive home after the last service on Sunday the first flakes of the great Christmas blizzard of '10 are beginning to fall.

~The REST of Christmas in Part 2...