Gifts, baubles and community

From Lichfield-

As Bishop of Stafford does his Christmas shopping, his thoughts turn to worms and scones.

Christmas seems to get earlier each year.Call me soft-hearted and old fashioned but I do like to take my wife out from time to time and I particularly like to spoil her with a tea and scone at The Range. For those less fortunate who have yet to discover this amazing hyper-store I can tell you that they stock over 65,000 different products and from September onwards half of them seem to be Christmas decorations! Having looked at aisle after aisle I finally discovered two different crib scenes selling at £9 each and also some plastic baubles to hang on thetree with a picture of the Holy Family – a snip at just under £3 and the only acknowledgment of the Christmas Story.

It seems to me that when it comes to Christmas many get their priorities wrong. Perhaps this speaks volumes about our increasingly secularised society where so much that affects our daily living is decided by ‘rational’ thinking without any reference to religious belief.

But there are two aspects of the Christian Festival of Christmas that ‘Winterfest’ will never be able to exclude: the sense of community that bubbles to the surface at this time of year and the giving of gifts.

More here-

https://www.lichfield.anglican.org/news/2018/12/03/gifts-baubles-and-community/