What a difference two letters makes

Tonight the only things on my mind are things that are more suited to a private and personal journal than to one that all of the Internet can read (drama of my own capped off by drama in close friends' lives as well), so I'm going to pretend the holidays aren't quite over yet and tell one more story about Christmas with my family.

As I've mentioned several times, I come from a set of very Catholic parents, so obviously church on Christmas Eve was a given. We used to go to the earlier mass at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. and then open our presents and watch A Christmas Story or The Bells of St. Mary's or White Christmas (or some other selection from my father's massive video collection) when we got home. In recent years, for some reason, we've switched to the midnight mass, which is actually the 10:00 p.m. mass, because apparently Catholics can't stay up so late anymore. It's all good and fine; I don't really want to be at church until bar close time anyway*; I just think it's odd that we all still call it midnight mass (or "the midnight mass at 10:00"). Or is it only in my house where they still call it that?

Anyway, the plus and the minus of midnight (or 10:00 p.m.) mass is that the bottle of wine that my dad might otherwise wait until after church to bring out instead came out around 8:00. This gave us just enough time for three of the five of us to get a nice little wine buzz going right before we left ridiculously early for the church.

I realize that Christmas Eve is the Superbowl of Catholic masses and an early start ensures we won't be standing behind the cheap seats for the full hour and twenty minute mass. But my parents' church is a five-minute drive from their house. I really thought it was being a bit overcautious to leave at 8:55.

The extra early departure was my mother's idea, of course. My sister relayed the plan to me earlier in the evening. "There's a cantina," she said. "Before the mass. At 9:20. Mom wants to be there for that."

Now, I realize that the Catholic church has been struggling to retain members in recent years. Perhaps they're making some radical moves as a result to try to draw more people in. But a cantina? Somehow I doubted that. Even on Christmas Eve, when the priest is trying to reel in all the once-a-yearers. He might swing that bucket of incense around a few extra times to try to get everyone a little bit loopy, but I really didn't think he'd start serving up tropical drinks.

Since this is the sister who once mocked me for using the word "circa" (because apparently it was an obscure and lofty word that no "normal" person would know), I figured she might have misquoted my mother just a bit. I pressed for more details.

"A cantina? At the church? Before the mass?"

"Yeah, it's something with the choir."

By now my mother had entered the room, and she quickly cleared things up. "I said a cantata! Not a cantina!"

This made a whole lot more sense, obviously. It was also a lot less fun. And with our wine buzz in us, the whole idea was entirely too hilarious to just let go and be all serious and reverential as the choir started its show. Every usher walking about, every bit of church paraphernalia carried across the sacristy in pre-mass preparation, all of it prompted a "Is he bringing the drinks?!" comment of sorts. Luckily, the sleepy effects of wine mellowed us a bit by the time the service started, so we weren't entirely sacrilegious when the priest began his walk up the aisle. I'm still pretty sure that the wine will be off-limits before church next Christmas, however. My mom will likely see to that.


-------------------------------
* Not that we've ever gone straight from church to a bar, so it's not like I'm worried about missing last call; it's simply a point of reference about the time.