Christmas season is now upon us so as a family which promotes Christian values we felt that we best go down to our local church which we’ve been attending these last 12 years, It turned out to be an amusing morning, firstly the new vicar (who we have met a number of times) thought we were from out of town and that considering when we do go (which is not as much as we used to due to rugby ) we are the only young family with four kids so we do seem to stick out a bit.
The congregation at our church has always been welcoming and although it’s getting smaller they will always spend time catching up with us and praising us about our kids.
This Sunday was Christingle making Sunday and because we couldn’t attend Christmas Eve service we wanted to help to create the Christingles, so giving something back to the church and to the community.
After the service, Father O got us all in the church hall and explained “we need at least 80 Christingles”, at this point, he also asked, “do we all know how to make them?” ASBO piped up “yes I do, you need an orange and a candle lots of sweets and a Red band” Now Father O still doesn’t know our ASBO unlike the verger who if he sees us walking towards him he will (in a very non-Christian way) cross over the road to avoid the Spanish inquisition from ASBO.
Father O now said and also trying to outsmart our 7-year-old asked, “ok so what’s the red band for”, smart ass ASBO replied”It’s the blood of Christ & the sweets on the sticks represents the seasons and the eternal love of God” Father O just said, “wow, I think you better take my place”.
Two hours with very sore fingers, many sweets eaten (and some raisins too) the team of us managed to hit the magic 80 but the fun was not just clearing up it was watching our children playing football in the church grounds, putting in tackles Vinnie Jones would be proud although I’m not sure The churchwarden Will be happy about the state of his grass after the Kids cup final!.
(due to the morning at All Saints Church making the Christingle’s with the oranges, red ribbon, candles, sweets, etc flying around the church hall due to sugar-filled crazed children, one part creating this religious Christmas symbol and other part stuffing their faces with the mountain of mini jelly babies and jelly beans and of course raisins, I forgot to take photos of our efforts, so I have made use of a free picture via a search and I give thanks to St Johns church Sharow for having a free picture to use which spookily looked like our Christingle boxes! )
