Tag Archives: christmas

Thanks for our toilet/chicken/fertiliser!

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We have had a lovely Christmas. Today we bought the last of our presents.

We twinned our downstairs loo with a latrine in Burundi, courtesy of Cord and Tearfund.

And we bought two other gifts from Oxfam Unwrapped–

A chicken (perhaps we can ‘twin’ this with one of ours too…)

And fertiliser (twinned with our compost bin? Or am I getting a bit twin-happy now?)

Before Christmas I wrote here about how we had asked our friends to think about NOT giving us a present this year- and many of them gave us money towards these gifts.

I should say that some still gave us gifts as well- and these were lovely too! Some people are so generous…

But the gifts above- they are a double blessing.

A flush of blessing.

A clucking blessing.

And a whole dung pile of a blessing.

Who knows how these things pan out (sorry- the puns kind of write themselves don’t they?) in places a long way from here. I only hope that there will be a little flicker of grace in a place much in need of some.

Because there is much grace in the giving…

A few alternative Christmas links…

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The Christmas madness is fully on us- particularly now the weather has turned for the better.

Most towns have a few houses like the ones above, which always cause a little incredulity, but at the same time serve as a metaphor for what this season can often become- overly consumptive, tacky, competitive and rather vacuous.

But there I go again, sounding like a bit of a misery monger.

Because Christmas is lovely- not just for the kids either. The simplicity of the stable, a family staying together through the mess of mixed loyalties and the strange feeling that everything- everything– is about to change…

But if like me, you are looking to find ways of celebrating Christmas in simpler way more befitting the story we remember, then you might find some of these things useful-

Generous have a list of suggested actions/activities to here.

Then there is the rather hard core buynothingchristmas

You might like to check out the film What Would Jesus Buy, featuring Rev Billy, mentioned on this blog last year…

You might like to think about a fair trade Christmas, courtesy of Traidcraft.

And you could also come over to join Aoradh at their mass sky lantern launch in Dunoon at 5PM on Sunday- a great way to make some prayers of hope visible.


A different kind of Christmas…

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Collecting ivy in the snow last year.

Michaela and I have been talking about Christmas.

I know, it is only the beginning of November, but we for several years now we have been really struggling with the whole commercial aspect of what for us, ought to be a celebration of much simpler much less worldly things.

Christmas is for many a time of debt as we feel such pressure to buy ever more expensive stuff.

It is a time too when many are lonely and the enforced pressure to consume just underlines the isolation.

Last year, I posted several pieces about this on this blog (here and here for example) but in the end we were carried along with the tide, as a choice to do Christmas differently would not just affect us, it would also affect our kids and our friends.

But this year we would like to start to do things differently, if we can.

So below is an open letter to our friends-

Dear friends

Last year many of you bought us so many lovely things for Christmas. We are so grateful that you think so much of us that you would take the time to buy gifts.

We know that it is good to receive, and even better to give, but the most important thing to us is your friendship, and in this we are blessed.

But this year, we want to try to make Christmas a little bit different- for these reasons-

  • We have so much, and others so little
  • We think that the meaning of Christmas as a festival has been lost under all the commercial madness
  • Christmas can be so stressful for people- the pressure to shop and spend money at a time when things are very tight
  • We have talked about wanting to do something different, but have decided that it is now time to actually time to do something

So we would like to humbly suggest that you do not buy us gifts this year.

Some of you are very organised (and very kind,) so may already have bought things with us in mind. If so, it might be possible to give these things to other people, or if not- give them to us anyway!

If some of you would still like to give some kind of gift, then we are intending to make a collection for Oxfam- purchasing some ‘Oxfam unwrapped‘ gifts in the new year.

We really hope to find a way back to a more simple way of doing Christmas- and so most of the gifts we give this year will be things we have made, or commitments/promises. Please know that we think very highly of you, and hope that this Christmas is your best yet.

Love

Chris and Michaela

Christmas at our house…

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So, another Christmas season comes and goes. We have had a lovely time, I hope you have too. Those moments of delight on the kids faces…

We have had Michaela’s Mum and Step-Father here this Christmas, which has been great as Robert has not been well. They had an epic journey up from Derbyshire- a 5 hour train journey became a 10 hour one, with cancelled trains and all sorts of problems because of the snow.

Scottish advent calendar?

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(What do you think to the snow on the blog by the way? A bit naff?)

My mate Andy sent me this today-

It made me laugh out loud.

Then smile ruefully.

Then feel a bit sad.

There will be a lot of drinking done in the next few weeks in the name of Jesus. Not that he was averse to the odd pint, or a carafe or two of the finest wine- just that this was never an end in itself…

So raise a glass or two with me and lets drink to wet the head of the Christ child, but as we all know, there is a morning after- and a glorious one at that. It would be a shame to spoil it with a hang over.

Call of duty- donate whilst machine gunning…

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Talking of Christmas spending and giving- my eyebrows rather shot skyward when I saw this advertisement on the TV yesterday.

Does anyone else find the combination rather bizarre- not to say a little obscene?

Or perhaps I am being unfair- it is a clever bit of marketing, and certainly the warfare the game is modelled on has left too many children in need of the support of War Child.

Christmas through the eyes of a small boy…

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Christmas has passed…

We have had a lovely time- just the four of us for the most part- a rare and lovely thing.

Today we spent pottering in the house and garden- finishing some wallpapering in our bedroom, changing some taps and stacking logs. The kids had a lazy lazy day and did not even get out of their PJ’s.

We bought Will a camera. I downloaded some of his photos. It was an interesting insight into the mind and preoccupations of a small boy at Christmas time…

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Community puzzle… the meaning of Christmas.

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I am part of a Christian arts group called Aoradh– a small group of people who try to be creative in our celebration of faith, and our engagement with our context.

Today we set up shop in a the Crown Court Cafe Bar (thanks Brian!), and invited people to take part in a Community puzzle.

This meant going round local shops and businesses, as well as stopping people in the street, and offering them a blank jigsaw piece, and asking them to decorate it somehow with something that represented their view of Christmas.

We also used this as a fund raiser for the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS). It looks as though we made about £500!

Here are some pics;

Christmas films…

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Now is the season of bad TV.

(That is perhaps unfair I suppose- bad TV may well be open-season!)

But pretty soon the airwaves will be full of those dreadful ‘Christmas Special’ programmesl. I hate that saccharine, mawkish way that the media folk make TV-about- TV. A slice of self referencing that assumes that the whole world is contained within our viewing tubes…

And of course, Jesus will not be mentioned in any of this. There will be all the other cliches- snowmen, santa’s, robins and sleighbells. There will be dancers in red fish net stockings, and the occasional oblique reference to ‘Goodwill to all men’.

But lest this descend even further into rant central, let me make a slight confession. I am a sucker for a certain kind of sentimental Christmas film.

Not the blockbuster kind- the ones that are made for the mass market. I avoid them like the plague ( and I suspect they would give me a nasty rash!) Rather, those American B movies, made somewhere in the snowy midwest, with a family (or an orphan, or a single mother…) in crisis, then goes through a trial, only to be redeemed about 5 mins before the end, which gives time for them to gather around a fireside and sing Carols.

Curiously, John Denver is in a lot of them…

They make me cry. In a good way.

I think I like them because they are an antidote to some of the Christmas madness, and have at heart something simple and wholesome- if totally manufactured.

One film that is almost guaranteed to start the waterworks is this one;

a_hobos_christmas
This film takes the story of a man who abandoned his family, but 25 years later, after a life as a tramp, decides he has to see his son again before he dies. Cue cute grandson, trim loving daughter in law, and bitter, but essentially good son, who when he realises who the odd-job man really is, kicks him out. But of course, it does not end there.

You know where it is heading don’t you? Back to that fireside and the singing of carols…

Lovely.

But recently I came across the ultimate antidote to those Christmas blockbusters I mentioned earlier- you know the type, Miracle on elf street, or one in which Rudolf learns to fly after accidentally crashing Santa’s sleigh into the toy workshop…

I have confessed before to a love of the Coen Brothers films. Almost every one is brilliant. When I realised that they had made a Christmas film then I had to see it

200px-bad_santa_film

This film is extremely funny, but it also takes the genre, and subverts it wonderfully. Here is a drunk, a thief, a womaniser and a gambler (played brilliantly by Billy Bob Thornton) who somehow makes us all root for him. it is full of profane one liners, and slap stick humour.

There is a kid in there- but cute he ain’t, and although it has a happy-ish ending, it is a Coen brothers happy ending, so it leaves you chuckling…

If you share a house with anyone who might wish to fill Christmas with Strictly-come-dancing-x-factor-big-brother-I-am-so-not-a-celebrity-but-I-do-try-so-hard kind of programmes, take some time out.

Get yourself one of these DVD’s.

And if you think they are rubbish, well there is always the Coronation Street pantomime special. Probably.

One Christmas tradition that still makes me cry…

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I just found myself caught up again in an advert for the Salvation Army Christmas appeal.

I have worked with Salvation Army projects in England. They have to survive in a harsh social care environment. The advert describes the familiar cutting edge of the work they do with street sleepers.

I know all the arguments- people end up on the streets for all sorts of reasons, and need to be facilitated to help themselves- out of the destructive cycles that brought them there. Well meaning sticking plasters don’t work in complex social crises.

But if I was down to the bottom of me, and found myself on the street, a hot drink and a hand on my shoulder would be no token. It might get me up the next day.

A cup of sweet tea on a cold night might not change the world, but the hand that served it might be the start of something called hope.

And a thick blanket will never wrap the worries of a generation, but a young girl whose bright lights have gone dark might instead find grace.

And if some stinking socks are removed and twisted toes are unbound in a warm soapy bowl, there will be no world peace. But it might being peace to one persons world, for a while…

So go on- out with the credit cards.

And the flugel horns.