My Usual Kick Off For Christmas

There are one or two things which I have to see or do every year before Christmas changes from a thing that is coming ‘eventually’ to an ‘actuality’. The first indication is usually the Coca-Cola Christmas ad - the ‘Holidays are Coming’ one with the lights and the trucks and snow and all that.
Next is hearing ‘the greatest Christmas song ever’ - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s ‘Fairytale of New York’ and third is attending the Christingle at St Michael’s, my local church.

For those of you who don’t know a Christingle is an orange (to symbolise the world) with a red ribbon round it (blood of Christ) , a candle stuck in the top (light of Christ) and four cocktails sticks with sweets on them (fruits of the Earth/four seasons). They are given out during the service, which is basically one long advert for The Children’s Society, in return for a donation.

The kids at the attached school are given Christingle candles to fill full of money which they bring with them, the adults are handed envelopes with a Gift Aid form on it (usually triggering a mass panic as no one ever brings a pen… except… cough… me). There are a couple of hymns, a sermon (advert) and a few prayers thanking God that we are not like the one’s that need help. (I get very cynical in services a this time of the year. I can’t help it.). And then the vicar points his finger severely and tells everyone to behave properly as candles pretty but painful.

It’s been done a million times before and, for those of us who have been going regularly, you can walk through it with a blindfold. This year, however, things were a little off. The sheet music for the first hymn had gone walkabouts so there was no accompaniment and the vicar had to ask for ‘help’ to get people singing. I’ll admit, it’s one I didn’t know… and when asked, only one person (in the almost full church) thought she knew it… and she was a ‘bit wobbly’. Here’s a suggestion - chose a song all the kids will know - there are plenty of Advent Carol’s out there about candles and light that are popular… I mean other than the extremely annoying Shine Jesus Shine that you love to torture us with every bloody year!

And then the microphone’s in the church appeared to be on the fritz. It was very very quiet and THEN EXTREMELY LOUD AND then back to normal all the way through. There was an element of ‘piss up in a brewery, you couldn’t organise’ about the whole thing. It was a real shame because I rely on these things to get me in the Christmas mood, which, because of a number of things I am finding it really hard to do.

So now I am hoping that shopping will do it.

It’s either shopping or drinking.

One of them has to work! And isn’t that a shame when the church, the one place I would expect to fill me with a little Christmas enthusiasm, has totally failed?