 Christmas celebrations, with the schools breaking up earlier than usual and therefore many families heading “home” for Christmas, seem to be happening earlier this year. In the churches’ calendar I try and keep the spirit of expectation and waiting up until the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but this is not easy outside the cathedral! So I put on my Christmas shirt and joined the fun at the British Embassy.  As well as carols led by St Christopher’s School, there were two readings and I read Nicholas Allan’s Jesus Christmas Party, a brilliant retelling of the story from the perspective of an increasingly grumpy innkeeper as he is woken up several times in the middle of the night by a series of visitors, bright lights and a chorus of angels until he himself is confronted by the newborn baby. |
Christmas celebrations, with the schools breaking up earlier than usual and therefore many families heading “home” for Christmas, seem to be happening earlier this year. In the churches’ calendar I try and keep the spirit of expectation and waiting up until the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but this is not easy outside the cathedral! So I put on my Christmas shirt and joined the fun at the British Embassy. 
As well as carols led by St Christopher’s School, there were two readings and I read Nicholas Allan’s Jesus Christmas Party, a brilliant retelling of the story from the perspective of an increasingly grumpy innkeeper as he is woken up several times in the middle of the night by a series of visitors, bright lights and a chorus of angels until he himself is confronted by the newborn baby.