how to attend midnight mass

Alice mentioned midnight mass to me when I joined her family for Christmas Eve dessert, describing it as a service in Dutch after which everyone sang "Silent Night." It hardly sounded exciting, but at 23:50, I googled "midnight mass" and found, to my astonishment, an article at eHow.com entitled How To Attend Midnight Mass, like a direct answer from God above. The mention of lots of music drove me to crutch as fast as ever I have to the OLV-o/d-Dijle kerk. It was my first time back since the accident...and worth every hop-step in the dark. Perhaps to most of the congregation, there was nothing out of the ordinary about it, but to me, attending my first midnight mass on a Christmas Eve that I had expected to spend alone, in a beautiful church, listening to familiar texts being sung in Dutch and reading from medieval notation, it was a wondrous hour. Belgium being small as it is, I ran into Eddy and his family afterwards, as well as church organist Wannes Vanderhoeven. And now I know that the organ is again within my crutching-reach.

Christmas with the Bordleys was fun and filling and finally exhausting. Sandra Collins (yeeeah girl DJs!) and Vello made alternative fashion statements, Sandra with a boy-beater depicting a baby in a soldier's helment declaring, "BORN TO DIE." They're flying to NYC to play at a new year party and then flying back into Belgium. Man. Eddy took out his three-liter bottle of Corsendonk, making the entire crowd happy until Vello inadvertently chugged down the unfiltered dregs. A distracted game of Yahtzee later and I was passed out in a corner. JR made a surprisingly thoughtful call as I miserably contemplated the ceiling...the second one this month. What's on his mind? But nobody wanted me to be driven home... because they were involved in an intense game of dice. Finally Eddy took me downstairs and showed me his beautiful living quarters and to Adegemstraat we went.