Sunday 24 December 2017

Beaker Christmas

So the Crib Service is over for another year.

An improvement on past years. There was no argument over why we had Six Wise People. Only four children overheated from excitement. And anybody complaining that Jesus wasn't really born in a "draughty stable with an open door" had the fire hose turned on them.

I'll be honest, there may have been too many LED Xmas lights. I mean, the service was at 4pm, but it's taken till now to be able to see well enough to actually write this post.

So now we settle in for the wait till midnight, when the Beaker Waits, led by our Beaker Ocarina Quire, will do the rounds of the community. To be greeted with the traditional hail of potato and sprout peelings. I believe some folk have laid in supplies of walnuts and catapults this year. So there may be a few lacerations.

The smell of cooking turkey hovers over the Great House, and we've the Fairytale of New York on a loop for the next 48 hours. And, though there are people less fortunate than ourselves, I only mention them to make myself feel more virtuous than everyone else. All the money's gone on the new telly.

Behind all of this, at a time liturgically 2016 years ago, a young woman is giving birth to her firstborn child. A tiny event, within a tiny family. But one that reverberates to the end of the world. Nothing is the same anymore.

Happy Christmas.

2 comments :

  1. We had angels, stars, shepherds, wise people, Mary &Joseph (both girls), sheep, 2 donkeys ... & Batman at our crib service

    ReplyDelete
  2. I prefer the Carol services. We had three major ones with visiting Choirs for two and our own Choir bolstered with some returning Choristers, with those lesson, which interrupted the well sung music.

    Than I vergered for two Primary School choir concerts and one for a CofE Secondary school concert with it's own chaplain, and 660 children in two batches. I should know the words of all of the carols by heart now, instead, I am suffering from an ear worm of Silent Night, sung by a young Chorister, which resonated through everyone. Who says the end of boy choristers is in sight - some, nurtured in one place can sing as beautifully as one of those cathedral upstarts.

    ReplyDelete

Drop a thoughtful pebble in the comments bowl