music and religion and Christmas: confluence of DRAMA

So I've been released (LDS technical term) from teaching the 4-year-old boys. I loved doing it, but my Sundays have abruptly become a lot less physically taxing. Also I seem to have a problem with disciplining kids older than my kid (younger than E? I am AWESOME), and the guy they got to replace me, who has nineteen grandchildren, is brilliant at teaching them; I think they are a lot better off now.

But now I have a new calling (another technical term), and December's gonna be more emotionally tasking. Whyyyyyy is there so much DRAMA surrounding Christmas music?? Whyyyyy am I in the middle of it all? (I know the answer to that one, if you believe in divine guidance for these callings which I'm starting to because I suspect they made exactly the right choice without being in possession of much of the data: because I am unaffiliated with any of the DRAMA FACTIONS, and quite possibly because of my previous rich familial experience in dealing with very nice and generous but also control freak strongly-opinionated organizational types) Am I going to be able to get through to Christmas without having half my church hate me?

Firebirds Rising

2/5 to 5/5. So I read maybe half the stories in this book. The half I read, I quite liked. The half I didn't finish, I obviously found super-boring.

And the last story is by Elizabeth Wein. So, I said, you're not going to fool me again! I'm onto your tricks! I'm armed against death-and-destruction, torture, mental head-game torture, and torturous love-hate familial conflict, and any of those things will just make me scoff cynically! And I was prepared.

...The story made me all sniffly anyway. Darn it!