I said this to a friend over summer when we were sorting through mounds and mounds of
Christmas 'stuff'. There's just something about that sea of tinsel and shiny plastic decorations, nylon santa hats and loud jumpers which makes me want to climb into a hole and hibernate. But actually when I thought more deeply about it, that isn't really Christmas, its just a way of celebrating it.
I've said this before but both my husband and myself grew up in families where our Dad's
were Priests and this definitely changed our experience of Christmas. I'm not even talking about the faith perspective (which to me and to our family is the most important and reason for Christmas). It meant that from about mid November, our lives began to revolve around preparing for Christmas. Not in a count down kind of way but in a season of preparation. In my Church choir, we would start carol practices, the Sunday school would begin Nativity rehearsals (and the fight to be Mary) and the church would organise the annual Christmas fayre where we would always win Mum some really random soap on the card tombola!! It was a sense of community excitement, we were all preparing for something together.
In the Church, the season of Advent has four Sundays, each one representing a part of not just the Christmas story but the history behind it and the reason for it. We would take turns to light the Advent candles in the service (and not set light to our hair!!) and watch the draughts in the 1000
year old church blow them around. We would spend freezing Saturdays cutting down holly and ivy in the church yard to decorate the church and hang the
Christmas tree with handmade decorations that we had made with the other children over the years! And finally the week before Christmas, we would be in Church everyday for some service, counting it down, getting excited. Maybe even staying up long enough to hear Dad leave for midnight mass, but always missing his return at 2am! Nether the less we would have him up at 7am to open the stockings before he left for the early morning Christmas day service at 8.30am and then back for a quick cuppa before we all headed over together.
It's been a very different year this year and this will be a very different Christmas where we don't get to see family as we would normally do or go to Church as we would normally do and it has really made me think about what I value about Christmas. The community, the faith, the tradition of Christmas story and the simple, handmade things which took so long and are so important.
So this year, I wanted to share some of those things on here to help anyone else who is looking for a simple, family, authentic and fun way to mark the preparation for an amazing day!
PS. I apologise to tinsel lovers out there - I still can't hack it!!
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