I Spent My Holiday Getting No Sleep

On December 24, 2006, I went shopping for gifts and food, I helped prepare dinner with my mother, I fed turkey to three hungry cats (we feed them canned cat food, yet they always believe that they are hungry), I had dinner with my mother, my grandmother, and my step-father (my brother's father), I had two presents to open (which was more than enough for me, literally), I had to get ready to sing at Midnight Mass (which I was not looking foward to because I had to sing in three to four different languages), and then I had to sing at Midnight Mass.

Midnight Mass was a frantic time. There were people from all over the Inland Valley at St. Joseph's Catholic Church. A lot of the church became "standing room only", there were combined choirs and two cantors singing, and liturgical dancers dancing to "A Child is Born". Everyone was dressed to the nine's in Christmas colors and Winter gear. Everyone was speaking to one another in two to three different languages, and anyone who had a vocation was ready to pass out right after the Mass was over, but I and a few other members of the choir could not. We still had Mass the next morning.

I still had gifts to pass out, I had friends to talk to and "catch up on old times" with, and then I had clean up duty afterwards (clean up duty includes putting microphones, stands, and cords away).

After all of this was done, I came home and was only able to get about four to five hours of sleep. I had to wake-up at 6:30 in the morning to sing at eight o'clock Mass.

For the record, I am a Catholic, and Catholics, seemingly, have to go to church all of the time. We have to go to Mass whenever a Mass is available.