I think the biggest adjustment so far between my pastor life and my student life was Christmastime. Before this year I'd been a student as long as I could remember, which meant I never had less than a week and a half off at Christmastime. This year? Not so much. My work continued pretty much as usual until and through Christmas. The biggest difference was that we had an extra service on Christmas Eve. Because that extra service was led by our youth group, I really didn't have much extra work to do, so for that I am quite grateful. Celebrating Christmas as pastor of a congregation for the first time was really exciting. I'd never preached the story of Jesus' birth before; that was a thrill for me. However, there definitely were a few times I had to remind myself that Christmas was quickly approaching. It just didn't feel normal. I'm sure I won't even blink after a few more years, but right now I'm still adjusting.
Celebrating Christmas became a little different as well. Since I was working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Tess and I didn't travel home to see our families. Instead, our families came to us. It was a bit strange, but we had a wonderful time. Plus, with so many people in the congregation and community being busy with their families, I was able to scale back my visiting a little bit for the week before and the week after Christmas Day. That opened up more time for me to be with my family and to recover from the extra busyness of church life in December. Our traditions will change almost certainly change over the next few years, especially since Tess and I will be parents ourselves, but that's not so bad. We'll make new traditions, and we'll probably have lots of fun doing so.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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