Christmastime
It's always very important to us on all sorts of levels and for all sorts of reasons :
1) Personal - Christmas forces us to face questions that we just find too difficult to grasp - how can it be that God could enter the creation he made? How could he become an embryo, a foetus, a baby? How could God be nursed and changed, and that in a stable? What does that say about God, about us, about the world?
2) For ministry Christmas is a brilliant time when people are more open than usual and when the great themes of the Christian faith can be discussed a bit more freely than usual. It does make Christmas a bit busy, though!
3) In the family. Gwilym was born on Christmas Eve, so it's a very special time for us, with celebration on top of celebration.
This year Christmas activities started really early with carol singing and stuff really from the first week of December. The Bordeaux Carol Service was on 12th December, and so on.
For the family Christmas Eve was the big day, with Gwilym's birthday in the morning, a special birthday lunch with friends invited, then Christmas dinner in the evening (but pork, not turkey... we did buy lamb for a special treat, but Pat grabbed the wrong joint from the fridge!) and then opening presents in the evening.
Christmas Day was spent basically at church! We had a rather nice, intimate Christmas Day Service at 11, followed by lunch together at church, three families and various singles were there.
Pat's brother gets married today in Cleobury Mortimer, but it would be impossible for us to go - air fares to Britain at the moment are expensive - Easyjet for four people from Bordeaux to Manchester would cost something like £1000. And to drive there we'd have had to leave a few days ago. Part of the implications of living overseas, I'm afraid !
We are pathetic at getting cards and letters done for Christmas. However now we have a little more time - perhaps we can get down to it and send New Year's Greetings instead!
1) Personal - Christmas forces us to face questions that we just find too difficult to grasp - how can it be that God could enter the creation he made? How could he become an embryo, a foetus, a baby? How could God be nursed and changed, and that in a stable? What does that say about God, about us, about the world?
2) For ministry Christmas is a brilliant time when people are more open than usual and when the great themes of the Christian faith can be discussed a bit more freely than usual. It does make Christmas a bit busy, though!
3) In the family. Gwilym was born on Christmas Eve, so it's a very special time for us, with celebration on top of celebration.
This year Christmas activities started really early with carol singing and stuff really from the first week of December. The Bordeaux Carol Service was on 12th December, and so on.
For the family Christmas Eve was the big day, with Gwilym's birthday in the morning, a special birthday lunch with friends invited, then Christmas dinner in the evening (but pork, not turkey... we did buy lamb for a special treat, but Pat grabbed the wrong joint from the fridge!) and then opening presents in the evening.
Christmas Day was spent basically at church! We had a rather nice, intimate Christmas Day Service at 11, followed by lunch together at church, three families and various singles were there.
Pat's brother gets married today in Cleobury Mortimer, but it would be impossible for us to go - air fares to Britain at the moment are expensive - Easyjet for four people from Bordeaux to Manchester would cost something like £1000. And to drive there we'd have had to leave a few days ago. Part of the implications of living overseas, I'm afraid !
We are pathetic at getting cards and letters done for Christmas. However now we have a little more time - perhaps we can get down to it and send New Year's Greetings instead!
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