Christmas

Well here I am having "survived" Christmas. Don't misunderstand me. I love Christmas. At least I love all the church services, the celebration of our Lord's Birth. This starts with the children's nativity services when we help them build up the crib through readings and songs as they process around the churhc with all the individual characters and place them in the crib itself. We then have the Midnight Mass when the church is always full to bursting. I am then up early for serving duties again at the early morning and family Eucharists.
I love all of that. It is a great privilege and joy to me to be one or other of servers/acolyte/crucifer/verger/thurifer duty ( I wear many hats!!) at all these services.
No I love all of that. But what I absolutely loath is the commercialism of the Festival. The spending-mad masses who shop to drop as if they will starve if the supermarket closes for one day!! I loathe the politically correct street decorations, the way the media dumbs down the Christian elements of the celebrations as if these do not exist when they certainly do!
Just before Christmas I retreated to Madeira for a week - an island where they profess their faith more openly, and where the taxi driver did not think it strange to take his fare to the Anglican church in Funchal on the Sunday - he would be going to his own church later that day. The photo was of a nativity display in a shop window - a shop seemingly devoted to Christian artefacts in Funchal.
Hey Ho. Happy New Year and a Happy Epiphany.