Though I love watching everyone unwrapping presents (and unwrapping some myself, too), good food, the glow of Christmas candles and the sight of the Christmas tree, the highlight of Christmas Eve this year surely was the annual Christmas Eve gathering at Warwick’s Old School Baptist Meeting House. In the twenty years we have lived here we never attended this event because of our own Christmas Eve family routine. But several people mentioned it this year, and I listened.

Sharing this event with so many familiar faces in this historic and picturesque white church on top of the hill right in the center of our beautiful town was simply magical. It was a spiritual event because it nourished the soul, even though it was not a church service. And our mayor said so aptly in his address: “There is nowhere I would rather be than right here.” I couldn’t have agreed more and I am so grateful to be living in one of the greatest little towns on earth.