Im not a big fan of Christmas, as anyone close to me knows. Mum and Dad worked every Christmas day til I was 17, and I often resented it. I rarely resented Mum and Dad devoting so much of their time to helping people, but as a kid, I resented Christmas day. I have since repented for this LOL.
However, we do have certain family traditions that make Christmas special. On Christmas eve, we always share a Cheese fondue which has become one of the most important events of the year for me. Then we all settle in for a Christmas film. This is more important to me than Christmas day, and especially as I will be away for a good chunk of next year, Im VERY excited about this years fondue.
I have not been carolling at all this year. This has been most peculiar and a little sad. It made me miss the hotch potch band at Wetherby that always had a good giggle in the market square.Even last year I managed to carol with them, but this year I havent managed a trip up north.
I have done some nice Christmas things, I went to the Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park briefly in the rain, I went to the army's big do at the Albet Hall (my thoughts on that could be a whole blog in itself, but probs too political), I went to a carol concert (well, half of it) at the Royal Festival Hall with Hannah Piper, I went to the THQ carol service, and today I went to the social services department Christmas lunch which was super.
One thing that has happened while I've been working in social services, is that, almost hourly, we get phone calls from people saying things like "I'll be sleeping on the streets this Christmas, do you have any beds?" or "I've just got no money, and my kids are asking for presents for Christmas, and I can't even afford to put food on the table" or a hundred other heartbreaking stories. It is so hard to hear, and even though we do all we can and in some situations we're really able to help, it puts something of a different slant on Christmas for me. In the current financial climate, more families than ever are dreading Christmas rather than relishing the thought, and it makes me ask more and more questions about how we celebrate and what it's really all about.
The challenge for churches is always how to put the Christmas message in a new and clever way, and some do it brilliantly...others not so much LOL. I always remember Ira Thomas putting this in a christmas letter to the Singing Company YEARS ago, and I hope I will keep this in mind this Christmas...
“The omnipotent, in one instant, made himself breakable.
He who had been spirit became pierceable.
He who was larger than the universe became an embryo.
And he who sustains the world with a word chose to be dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl.
God as a foetus.
Holiness sleeping in a womb.
The creator of life being created.
God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen.
He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother.
God had come near.
He came, not as a flash of light or as an unapproachable conqueror, but as one whose first cries were heard by a peasant girl and a sleepy carpenter.
The hands that first held him were unmanicured, calloused, and dirty.
No silk. No ivory. No hype. No party. No hoopla.
Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts.”~Max Lucado
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