Joyful Gaudate Sunday!

Had a busy and wonderful week. Just got home from our "Carols by Candlelight" (which aren't really by candlelight at all!). It's basically a big picnic with Christmas carols. Today's high was something like 83 so it works here. I doubt this would fly in most of the US at this time of the year!

Friday I went out to Sydney to see a special light show on the Cathedral of St. Mary there. During the day I met up for lunch Andrew, who is Lebanese and a lawyer (not that that has anything to do with anything). While waiting for the light show, I went to a department store that was advertising an incredible gift giving experience on the 6th floor of their store! So I had to go see it. It was fun. I enjoyed the life-sized lego R2D2 and C3PO (1-3).

Heading to the Cathedral, we passed through Hyde Park in downtown Sydney. They have a whole bunch of decorated trees (4). And tons of bats huge fruit bats (5-6). They are really big, really fast, and so hard to photograph in the gloaming!

This is Andrew (who is also a parishioner and a youth group leader) and I in front of the Cathedral before the start of the show (7). Here is the large outdoor nativity (8) and the moon over the church.

The light show lasts about 15 minutes and is in sections. The first part is a cartoon of the Nutcracker with the Tchaikovsky music played over loud speakers (10-14). I love it when they use the actual architecture to enhance the 3D effect like this gingerbread house (13). After the Nutcracker, we went through several abstract landscape like things (15-17) that ended with a beautiful peacock opening it's tail feathers (17). And then a wonderful series of famous Madonna and Child paintings (18-24). And then some geomteric shapes (25-27) looping back to the Nutcracker. Nicely done.

On the way home, we ran into an Australian possum (28). I'm told that they can be quite nasty, especially when they hole up in your roof. This one was quite mellow and allowed photos.

I end with something to bring you a smile: our kindy kids and their Christmas concert (29-30). Check out the title of one of their songs (30)!