December 24th, Part 2:
After fondue, we all took naps. My mom sat upright on the couch with her mystery novel propped up in her lap, but she wasn't fooling anyone. Her mouth kept falling open and little snorkling noises would come out of her throat.

I curled up in my standard armadillo position and tucked my head under an afghan, hoping we would all fall deeply asleep and miss going out to the 11 o'clock church service downtown.

But mom was determined to go.

So at quarter to, Kristi, mom and I piled into the car and headed over to the church, where we wandered around, looking for a door. The building itself was huge and imposing, gray stones all looking very gothic, and there were only two small wooden doors, as far as we could see, bearing black metal hinges like the door to a steakhouse. We spotted a handicap ramp and figured, well, we're all a little handicapped, and rattled on the door until someone from the choir came out of the dressing room to see what all the rucus was about.

We should have gone through the steakhouse door.

Once we got settled in towards the back, mom nestled between us, I staged a raid on the donation envelopes, which were labeled "PEW OFFERING." I mean, come on.

The lessons were given by a woman with a walleye, very cute, one eye rolling dramatically to the right while the other looked straight ahead.

The minister gave a sermon on how baby Jesus was really born in the heart of the innkeeper's house, as that's where people in those times kept their animals.

A large man in front kept shouting out answers to the mininster's rhetorical questions.

A smaller man in the row ahead of us got a nasty case of the hiccups. The walleyed woman eventually came and sat down next to him.

The choir sang a bunch of songs and rang large bells.

I was so tired I could hardly keep my eyes open.

My sister nudged me and asked if I was going to take communion. I told her that I hadn't been to confession and that I'd probably burst into flames, my standard excuse for not partaking in the freaky cannibalistic ceremony that is transubstantiation. She whispered back that we were at a LUTHERAN church and that I didn't need to go to confession first. Oh, right.

We took communion. We dipped our wafers into a mug of wine held by a ten year old girl. My sister went for the grape juice, which is a popular alternative in this age of recovering alcoholics. She started to dip her wafer and the guy holding the glass said, "This is grape juice, but it's still the blood of Christ, shed for you."

"What?" she said, tilting her head to hear above the organ and the warbling of the congregation singing.

"Grape juice, not wine. But still the blood of Christ, shed for you," he repeated, leaning in.

"I'm sorry, I can't hear you," she stepped over and got within six inches of his face.

"It's GRAPE JUICE!" the man finally raised his voice and shattered the illusion.

She dipped her wafer and stared at him, then turned and walked away.

I was having my own difficulties. The woman in front of me was wrestling with the ten year old, trying to grab the goblet from her to take a drink, a much more traditional way of doing things, although not nearly as sanitary. The kid was holding her own, attempting to stop it, but the minister intervened and let her take a drink, then wiped the edge of the glass and continued as if nothing had happened. I was paralyzed. I'm sort of an obsessive-compulsive freak, and along with that particular disorder comes a great fear of other people's mucus. If I dunked my wafer in there, it would be like kissing her, and who knew where she had been. We're all children of God, my ass! After a slight hesitation, I felt my mother push me with a hand to the small of the back. I dipped into the contaminated wine and put the wafer in my mouth and rubbed my tongue against the roof of my mouth with vigor, in an attempt to psychologically crush the germs that might have been in my few drops of the blood of Christ, shed for me.

When we got back to the pew, mom slid in first, leaving the two of us to sit next to each other. Bad move. Inappropriate laughter ensued, starting with giggles at the chorus to "Most highly favored lady, AMEN!" The hiccup guy couldn't get it under control. Neither could we. The whole pew vibrated with our shaking laugher. The choir walked through the aisles and the guy in front of us high fived one of the tenors. We lost it. People around us glared.

Mom ignored us.

Everyone said an "Our Father" outloud. The last half has been rewritten and revised so many times that no one knows what it originally was. Everyone diverged and said it the way they learned it. It sounded awful, everyone talking at once but with no unification. Kristi hee-hawed. Mom smacked her in the arm.

Mercifully, it ended. We left by the front door on the way out and shook the minister's hand. I caught a glimpse of hiccup man and the walleye woman. I started laughing all over again.

"You are going straight to hell," Kristi giggled in my ear.

"So are you, most highly favored lady," I snorted back.