Welcome back to Part 5 of a Die Hard Christmas Pageant! While our hero John Wesley has been crawling through vents and stealing the baby Jesus doll before Herod can get to it, our villains have cracked the code and readied themselves to “honor” the newborn king!  There are only a few entries left in this silly story to end 2024 and kick off the New Year. While I have tried to fill up every page with liturgical jokes and tributes to both Die Hard (it’s a Christmas movie!) and Methodism, I am also hoping to subtly show the passing of Christian time from Advent to Epiphany, with blue and purple backgrounds (symbolic of Advent) giving way to gold and green backgrounds (holy days and ordinary time), with the exception of occasionally highlighting Herod with red to indicate his blood-thirst.  The church carpet has remained pink through every panel as a string of joy (the pink candle on our Advent wreaths) through the entire story.  These details are mostly just for me and my own nerdiness, but I thought I’d let you in on it as well.

May your year end in blessing and contemplation on the many ways God has remained present through thick and thin.  Until the next post, my friends!