I have some very nice presents this year, and some very odd ones.
I'll leave the odd ones aside for now, and I won't enumerate the very nice ones because if I do anything not listed will be assumed to be a very odd one which won't necessarily be the case. So this is a blanket thank you until I get round to writing thank you notes/emails, although, for one of the two real people (as opposed to e-friends) who regularly reads this blog, I will say that I always like a nice cup of tea. Thanks.
Among my presents was a box of those nice crispy mint thins which was opened and sampled enthusiatically by Jessica. I remember a Christmas 44 or 45 years ago when my stocking contained a box of Royals (little chocolate bars about twice the length of neopolitans in a box about the size of a pack of playing cards). Being a properly brought up child, my first action was to take them through to my parents' bedroom to offer one to each of them. Both refused kindly but firmly on the grounds that grown-ups didn't want to eat chocolate before breakfast. I thought then that I would never ever be that old. Well, I am and I don't - not merely before breakfast, but before lunch too. Jess and her brothers have gone, kindly leaving me about three quarters of my chocolates (which, incidently, they gave to me).
Back to last night: The Church was reasonably full (despite filthy weather) for Midnight Mass and the congregation included several young people (16-25) coming of their own volition which was nice. The youngest of them is a member of a non-churchgoing family who has started turning up from time to time: he sat next to me, and kept asking for explanations of words like redemption and apostolic - difficult to do in a whisper in the middle of a service, but probably worthwhile. Irritatingly the man who had said he would read the first lesson did not turn up, which left poor Stuart having to sight-read a not particularly simple passage fron Isaiah. The service was taken by the archdeacon (the Venerable Jane Sinclair) who has a nice straightforward, sincere approach. Colin played the organ and we sang seven carols (three more than planned). Because young Brendan arrived late and I had handed him my service booklet and carol sheet I was working from memory which is fine by me, although I find that I don't really know It Came Upon a Midnight Clear word for word apart from the first and last verses, and there is one generally omitted verse (the 4th I think) of O Little Town of Bethlehem on which I am a bit vague. Also, when working from memory I found that I was saying 'forgiveness' (as for rite A) when we say 'redemption' in Swallow, and 'whose propery is always to have mercy' (as in Common Prayer) when we say 'whose nature is always to have mercy' - very odd and not at all consistent.
The candle-lit church looked lovely, although I kept thinking of those lines in the Betjeman poem
"So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day"
