Christmas

As you might expect, we do Christmas a little differently.

The most outrageous thing is that we make a distinction between Christmas and Advent - we celebrate Advent in the 4 weeks preceding Christmas, and Christmas on Christmas day itself and the following 12 days.

So - to the scandal of our friends, neighbours and the rest of the world - we don’t put up our decorations or Christmas tree till the night of Christmas Eve. That has the benefit of everything being very fresh and exciting for Christmas Day. They then stay up until Twelfth Night - the feast of the Epiphany.

In Advent, by contrast, we have an advent wreath and advent calendars, and sing O Come O Come Emmanuel each evening, with the right candles lit on the wreath before our evening prayers. We also have a Jesse tree and have a reading from the Bible each night, to recall the whole of salvation history.

We try to keep presents within reasonable bounds: we want the kids to enjoy Christmas without it becoming an orgy of materialism....

In defiance of all health and safety busybodies everywhere we have real candles on our Christmas tree.

And of course we maintain the religious nature of the feast.

As I write this the big girls are practicing playing Carols for the Christmas Eve carol service...