Gabriel

Here's my latest little one. I named him Gabriel. His wings were needle felted then hand-dyed. Gabriel's 7 day auction started on eBay last night at 6:45PM PDT.

When I was making him, it reminded me of a church Christmas pageant that I was once in. It was a tradition at St. John's Lutheran church in Anchor, Illinois to have the pageant on Christmas eve. It was also a tradition with my family to open presents after church. The church pageant was always a very exciting event for the Andreae kids. But this year was even more exciting. I was going to be an angel and my sister was to play Mary.

That night we ate our bowls of chili and quickly dressed to go to church. So after the 30 minute ride through the slushy snain (rain & snow) we arrived at our beautiful little brick church. My sister and I headed down stairs to get dressed. Valerie was beautiful in her Mary costume. Being the smallest angel my costume seemed to overtake me. I had to tie the belt extra high to keep my gown from dragging. Plus I had to walk very gingerly or else my halo would fall off. When we were ready, we lined up to go up the stairs and into our assigned pew. It was the larger angels first and me in the rear. That was the way we were also to file onto the stage and the opposite upon leaving.

I sat in the pew watching my sister as she knelt before the manger. Joseph was kneeling behind her. The light from manger cast a warm beautiful glow upon them. It was now the angels turn to stand behind the holy family. As we filed up on the stage, I noticed Joseph was looking kind of green. Then as we were standing behind, Joseph bent over and threw up in the manger. You can well imagine the smell as it hit the source of the beautiful light, a 150 watt trouble lamp. My poor sister had to kneel there for the rest of the evening. Luckily for us angels we got to go back to our pew. But I led them astray into the wrong pew. The pastor's wife had to redirect us. As I sat down, the chili took hold. I let out the loudest fart ever. It seemed to echo through out the whole church. It was hard not to laugh. As I sat there trying to hold back the giggles, my halo fell off. I bent down to pick it up. And guess what? Another frog had escaped and the whole row of angels were all cracking up as we sang "Angels we have heard on high". Proving once again my Mom's favotite saying. "You can dress them up. But you can't take them to town,"