Christmas in envelopes
Monks are at it again, quaffing, carousing;
And stage-coaches, cantering straight out of Merrie England,
|In a flurry of whips and fetlocks, sacks and Santas.
Raphael has been roped in, and Botticelli;
Experts predict a vintage year for Virgins.
From the theologically challenged, Richmond Bridge,
Giverny, a lugger by moonlight, doves. Ours
Costs less than these in money, more in time;
Like them, is hopelessly irrelevant,
But brings, like them, the essential message
Love
Ursula Askham Fanthorpe
“Christmas seems to come earlier every year!” It’s a familiar cry as shops put out their wares whilst it still seems to be summer and we try not think about it – and then suddenly it’s December and oh, dear, where did the time go? It IS Christmas and we’re not ready!
If you’ve had Christmas at HPC (Hampstead Parish Church, remember?) before you’ll see that all the traditional services are happening again – the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at 6pm on 16th, the Children’s Carol / Crib Service on Christmas Eve at 5.30pm (if you love carols but dread trying to keep your children quiet during the Nine Lessons and Carols then this is the one for you – no one keeps quiet, it’s a joyful, riotous celebration of the Christmas story and anything goes.) Services continue with Midnight Mass at 11.30pm and then a quiet Holy Communion on Christmas Day at 8.00am and the usual Parish Eucharist at 10.30am. Then I imagine the clergy and music department collapse in a heap, to say nothing of the churchwardens, servers and sidesmen who help with the smooth running of all these services.
There are other events during December (!) – six school Christmas services, a Lunchtime Concert on 5th, featuring an organ recital by Philip Berg from the Savoy Chapel, the launch of the Life and Death in Hampstead Sound Trail at 11am on 8th (details on page….) a teen event on 14th, Bach to Baby on 17th (a Monday this month but they’ll be back to Tuesdays in the new year) and a Literary Hour on the 19th featuring seasonal favourites, along with all the usual study groups and services.
For many years now we’ve put up a Christmas card board for members of the congregation to pin their cards to everyone in the parish. The original idea had been that people pay a small sum for this but we took the decision to make it free and it has proved popular. However it has been suggested that we also run a different kind of postal service – somewhere that people can leave sealed cards for others to pick up and we’re happy to try that – with two conditions: We take no responsibility for lost cards and, even more important, we take no responsibility for getting cards to the right people – it will only work if you remember to go and check whether there are any cards for you! Every year cards are left on the shelf at the back of church which never get collected and it’s so sad to see them there and know that somewhere someone is wondering why so-and-so didn’t send them a card this year. So we’ll give it a try – the board (or possibly table, haven’t worked out the logistics yet) will be somewhere down by the piano from the 16th December, the same day that we put up the board for more public displays of seasonal greetings.
Giving is an integral part of Christmas and I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry that everyone seems to want either money or Amazon vouchers these days, that there are Amazon wishlists where you can see exactly what people want, the price, where to get it – the only challenge being whether it will arrive in time. How much simpler for Mary and Joseph if they could have suggested they needed a cot or some baby clothes and that gold, frankincense and myrrh, whilst no doubt highly symbolic, didn’t feature anywhere on their wishlist.
It’s a time for giving in the parish too. Further on in this issue you’ll find a list of the charities the parish supports throughout the year and especially at the Christmas Services, and articles about two of those charities – BASR (Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation) and the Children’s Society. But we give to other causes in many different ways – we collected what must surely have been a record number of shoeboxes (204) for Operation Christmas Child on 18th November; we have started collecting food and basic toiletries for CARIS Haringey and the Camden Foodbanks, on top of the Harvest food we give to the Simon Community for their work with the homeless. In these ways the church seeks to reach out to the community – do read Mother Emma’s sermon on the need for the laity to reach out to the unchurched on the website hampsteadparishchurch.org.uk or in the folder at the back of the church.
Christmas is a time for tradition too. We like to do what we’ve always done, whether it’s a particular meal, alone or with friends, a particular service we like to attend (Midnight Mass or the Morning Eucharist), watching the Queen’s Speech or the Christmas edition of your favourite soap, the long walk (or nap) after lunch. Some of you will be relieved to know that the proposal to replace the traditional but increasingly expensive Christmas tree in church with something more avant garde involving a scaffold pole was voted down! We invite donations towards the Christmas flowers every year – I suppose this year we could offer the chance of sponsoring a few feet of the tree? A real tree is probably safest to please everyone but I rather regret the chance to do something very different and completely un-traditional.
Finally, do you remember The Angels, the singing of which to a setting by Jonathan Harvey some years ago wowed us all at a Carol Service?
The Angels
Should you hear them singing among stars
or whispering secrets of a wiser world.
Do not imagine ardent, fledgeling children;
they are intelligences old as sunrise
that never learnt right from left, before
from after,
knowing but one direction, into God,
but one duration, now.
Their melody strides not from bar to bar,
but like a painting, hangs there entire,
one chord of limitless communication.
You have heard it in the rhythms of the hills,
the spiralling turn of a dance, the fall of words,
the touch of fingers at the rare, right moment,
and these were holy, holy.
John V Taylor