Christmas comes but once a year – just as well really because however enjoyable the festivities they soon lose their charm. The shops that put up their decorations in October can’t wait to get them down – indeed they often take them down on Christmas Eve ready to open with Sales on Boxing Day, such is the pressure of our retail enterprises. Christmas trees put up in homes in early December are discarded on Boxing Day as if the season is over – as it is for many people who see Christmas Day as the culmination of the festival rather than the Christian view of it as the start. It always seems slightly odd, though I do it as much as anyone, to go to Christmas parties before Christmas, but the eagerness of Advent instead of the sombreness of Lent gives it an inescapable cheerfulness that doesn’t quite go with fasting.
It’s true we decorate the church for the last Sunday in Advent, something that would have been frowned on not that long ago. I remember once being told by someone in the congregation that the flower ladies weren’t allowed to put up any decorations until after Evening Prayer on Christmas Eve. Now THAT would be a challenge! And in some churches they keep their decorations up until Candlemas – which used to signal the end of the Christmas season – remember Robert Herrick’s poem on Candlemas Eve?
Down with the rosemary, and so
Down with the bays and mistletoe;
Down with the holly, ivy, all
Wherewith ye dress the Christmas hall;
[and so on…..]
I don’t think even I, much as I love Christmas glitz, would want to keep the decorations going until 2nd February!
During Advent this year there will be a series of Advent meditations in the church to help us prepare ourselves, to give us time apart from the hustle and bustle of present buying, food planning, carols and parties – Wednesdays at 8pm. These evenings are an oasis of calm and well worth attending – if you can’t come to all come to one or two and get away from it all.
If you like singing carols then we have plenty of opportunities in the church. All the school carol services are open to the public, there’s the Friends of the Royal Free Concert on 14th and a feast of Renaissance music and mediaeval carols with Siglo de Oro on 19th and, of course, our own much loved Service of Nine Lessons and Carols on 20th. You can find details of all these in the diary pages and further on in this issue.
Two sermons this month – Father Jim’s of a few weeks ago on our respo9nsibility for climate chaos and The Inn Keeper, Father Stephen’s address for the children on Christmas Day last year. It’s a good story and can bear a little retelling amongst all the fripperies of Christmas.
Meanwhile there is life outside the Christmas chaos: we say goodbye to Mother Sarah on 6th December – sadly but rejoicing that she won’t be far away, is maintaining our links with our Cathedral, and wishing her every joy as their new minor canon. The Women’s Bible Study group will continue without her – a tribute to her leadership that they have bonded as a group able to sustain her loss; the Wednesday Bible study groups continue too, there’s one more Holy Hamsters meeting before the school holidays and the lottery project has gardening and tree events on 6th. The work being done by Honia’s volunteers [some from the parish, some new to us] is making an astounding difference – on 21st November they made Bat and Bird boxes which we expect to see on our trees shortly. It looks as if the path work will have to wait until the Spring now, winter weather not being conducive to path-laying, but it’s something to look forward to. And if all else fails to cheer you up, the days start getting longer even before we get to Christmas and it’ll all be over in a few weeks.
Happy Christmas!
Footnote:
A few weeks ago the parish office received an email from an historian trying to verify the following story:
‘The Hampstead Prima Donna’
In 1879, the Rev FS Burnaby, vicar of Hampstead, went into police court to charge a female parishioner with being disruptive. Her singing was very loud and very off key to the point of unsettling the choir, which was the vicar’s pride and joy. He had repeatedly tried to convince the woman to sing more quietly, or perhaps, worship elsewhere. Nothing worked.
I’d never heard this story [and it’s not one you’d forget, is it?] but I do so hope it’s true.
December
Judy East