On Christmas morning, we got up, got dressed, and went to church. As usual, the service began at 10:30 am, although, as promised in advance by Rev. Sails, it lasted less than 45 minutes. It included everyone (under the age of 10) sharing their favorite Christmas gift. We had a boy (about three) sitting in front of us who came dressed as Father Christmas, and was none too happy to be wearing the hat when his mother tried to put it on him. However, someone else sitting nearby prevailed upon him to put it on, and Rev. Sails picked him up and showed him off to everyone, and commented to Little Father Christmas on how funny everyone looked (and noted that he got to look at us every week). About ten minutes later, Little Father Christmas escaped from his mother and went darting up the right aisle of the church, with mom in hot pursuit (she caught him about three rows from the front; they had been sitting about 15 rows back from there). One of the older ladies wandered over to mom shortly thereafter and offered to take him outside the sanctuary to play with him, which mom gratefully accepted.
Amanda, incidentally, refused to show off her Build-a-Moose, Chris Moose, arguing that she was over the age of ten. I was sad.
The sermon was about there being no circumstances in which there was no room for a particular type of person on the church, which we thought was rather fitting, given our experience of the night before at the cathedral. It was nice to hear that God loves gay people and that they should be welcomed in church. I gather that Rev. Sails and a lot of Baptist ministers that I know would not get along very well.
After the service ended (in under 45 minutes, as promised), we milled about and talked to people for a while as the Leas caught up with the people who were youth-aged when they first moved to Exeter. Most of those people now have children that are youth-aged, and Dr. Lea commented on how most of them look very much like their parents did all those years ago. After everyone had filtered out of the church, we walked back to the Lea's house, which is on the other side of the city centre. Our walk took us past the cathedral, through the (empty) back side of Princesshay, past the St. Luke's Campus, and very nearly all the way home. The Leas, it turns out, live all of about 10 minutes away from where we do. It's about the same distance from the Mint (25 minutes walk), so we got back to their house shortly before noon. We then set about talking with Dr. Lea, and discovered that we had all lived in Germany in the past. He lived there in the 1970s, and Amanda and I, of course, lived there two years ago.
Dr. Lea then had to depart for the lab on campus to "Feed the Rats their Christmas Dinner," as it's called. He notes that they don't actually have any rats anymore; however, as the guy in charge, he still gets to feed them on Christmas as part of a long tradition of lab animal care. While he was away, his sister and brother-in-law arrived. His sister is a former patent attorney turned Methodist minister, and his brother-in-law is a retired history teacher. We snacked on crisps, olives, and a few other appetizers as we talked with them and awaited the arrival of one of the Lea's sons. This is the one who is local; their other two children live in Germany and California. He was bringing the last of the food (the fried potatoes), along with his partner and her two children (as Mrs. Lea was careful to point out to us, they are not their grandparents).
One of the boys (the older one, if memory serves) went around lighting candles in the dining room, including lighting the incense cone inside the Smoking Man, who was purchased in (appropriately) Germany. After a while, he had to be relocated to the patio, as he was overpowering the assembled diners with his smoke.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, some other smoke was being produced. It turns out that one of the two figgy puddings that was cooking boiled off all the water in its pan, which led to quite a bit of smoke forming in the kitchen. Once the minor disaster of the resulting smoke had been dealt with, we began to eat the figgy pudding and other assorted desserts. The figgy pudding, we were told, is an acquired taste, and the recipie is passed down from mother to daughter-in-law (apparently, boys are picky about how they like their figgy pudding!). Dr. Lea told us that he was the only one in the family who really liked figgy pudding, and Mrs. Lea cut in and said that she had developed a taste for it. Amanda liked it, although I wasn't a huge fan. I don't expect it to pop up next Christmas, but she might surprise me.
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