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Happy Christmas morning!

May I, on behalf of my family, wish you and all your loved ones are blessed and happy Christmas season

Every year brings its own challenges, and I think this year has brought more than most. We had anticipated that life would be normal by now, in fact we thought it would be normal by last Christmas! But it was not to be.

What we have learnt – in this year and nine months – has been the ability to adapt to, and to try to enjoy whatever life has turned up for us. The best new understanding, I think, is the way we have all learnt to appreciate those things which we took for granted in the past, and to survive without those things that we formerly thought were essential.

As we adapted our lifestyles we had to look for people with new skills to emerge and search for new resources of help to appear. We have also each had the privilege and challenge to become the source of those skills and helps for others.

I was particularly impressed by the role of some of our parishioners in reaching out to the community around them with practical help and acts of kindness. Your gift of energy and time was a model of kindness and I think many people have appreciated it.

Christmas morning in our house was always fairly fraught, and involved a lot of going to church, drinking juice or tea or coffee (depending on our ages), opening some of the presents, and looking forward to spending time over a wonderful meal with some other members of the family.

My hope for you this Christmas is that you enjoy the festivities, even if these had to be somewhat adopted for this year.

Perhaps along with many things you do today you will include these three actions!

1. you will say thank you to everyone who is in your home and in your community whom you meet who has help you in anyway.

2. you will lend a hand to those who are busiest among you in order to let them know that you appreciate their practical kindness and help.

3. you will spend some moments today, away from entertainment, away from the busyness, in a place of quietness, and you will pray a little prayer.

Here is a short prayer to help you get started:

Father God,
thank you for your son Jesus,
who came among us at that first Christmas time,
    and showed us the way to live.
Help me today to entrust my worries,
    my hopes and my fears, into his care.
Show me today how I can best follow him
    at the end of 2021 and the start of 2022.
These things I ask for the glory of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Happy Christmas to you all!

Stephen

Signage Photo by Anthony Cantin on Unsplash

Baubles Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash