The first weekend in December is when we put up the Christmas tree and in the Dearnley family, the Christmas season has truly begun.
I don’t know about you but this is the time of year when I hope to think I am ahead of schedule. The diary has visits to family and friends booked in and I may have even got some bags of presents bought, wrapped and ready to be handed over.. I have lists scribbled on bits of paper or another note on my mobile and I have even got a few packs of cards on the kitchen counter ready to be unwrapped to start to write and get those that need to go overseas and hit that postal deadline.
But this Christmas is different.
Visits are not in the diary, shops are shut and 2020 has been a year like no other.
This year I have decided to embrace difference rather than fight it. Instead of thinking about what is lost I am looking for what I can find. I am re-imagining, doing differently and being thankful for what we do have.
Perhaps it is family zooms, surprise calls on the phone rather than a one liner in a card, gifts that are light weight, planning with family and friends of when we will meet again in 2021. And for now, we can value the time we have to do things differently and importantly find ways to say thank you. If there is anything I have valued from 2020 it is what really matters and always, always always, kindness wins, love wins! Send messages of kindness and love to each other this Christmas.
And talking of different…….
St Peter's Youth group (SPY) is planning a different sort of nativity which we can do together without having to meet together, because we can’t! Watch out for this on December 13th and we hope many will enjoy our local nativity telling the story of Christmas with a unique flavour of our COVID 19 experience of 2020!
Maybe this Christmas, as you put your Christmas tree up and prepare to celebrate the birth of the baby who is “GOD WITH US”, pick up the phone, share the gift of kindness and hope to others as we prepare ourselves for a new way of being a world in the year to come.