We went out tonight, after dinner. Bundled up the little ones and strapped them into their car seats and drove to St. Andrew’s-Welsley United Church downtown. We came for the singing, for the massed voices and the shining silver trumpet and the thundering pipe organ in the vaulted ceiling. Well, that was what I came for, anyway.

We stood there and I raised my voice up and sang Christmas carols as familiar to me as members of my own family and bounced baby Claire on my hip. It was well past her bedtime and I was hoping that she would be happy enough to look around and flash her grin at people. As we began singing she looked around in puzzlement, curious at the sudden music all around us. I watched her look at the people behind us, and at me and Tom and Beatrice. She took it all in for a few minutes, then, wooden caterpillar in one hand and songsheet in the other, she started singing too. Loudly, and happily.

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family by michelle