Where on earth did this year go to!?  Same place as all the rest, I suppose, it just went there faster!  And it's time to start opening the doors of the Advent calendar and lighting the candles in countdown to Christmas.

Normally I'd try to write something jolly at this time of year, but as I write St Laurence's has just suffered a sudden bereavement, and also lost at least two other old stalwarts from years gone past.  At Christmas time sometimes we become more keenly aware of those that are missing.

Almost precisely because Christmas is a happy time, and a time of good memories, for many it also becomes a time of sadness - when absences are more obvious.  The empty space at the dinner table somehow assumes greater proportions when Christmas dinner is being served.  Sometimes we can remember well, and toast those we miss - remember the good times we had with them - but that's not always easy.  Sometimes we just naturally lament those we still love but will see no longer.

Christmas is a family time, but for many that can be a painful thing too.  Many, many children (perhaps even most) will be spending Christmas with only one parent while missing the other - and of course the other parent will usually be missing them just as keenly.  Some families will come together and wish they hadn't as the stress of the season blows up into rows.  And some will simply be lonely.   Many have no family - or no family nearby who can visit on the special day.

Am I cheering you up!?  Sorry to be depressing, but I think it's better to face the realities of the real world before we celebrate, than to ignore them completely; otherwise our celebrations are in danger of being simply escapism and we inevitably come back to earth with a hard bang afterwards.

With 'credit crunches' or 'economic downturns' or whatever you care to call them, many will be finding the season financially worrying.  Of course we could probably learn to enjoy Christmas with much less materialism.  People clearly used to enjoy the celebrations with far less than we're used to now, not very long ago at all.  Who doesn't have a parent who's told then how much they liked getting an orange in their Christmas stocking?!  But poverty is, at least to some extent, relative.  Try giving a teenager an orange for Christmas today, when last year their mate got an X-box (whatever that is?!)!

But many people can't afford to celebrate at all.  Some people, even in our own area, will be sleeping rough this Christmas, with no family, no hot meal, nothing.  Maybe they have, through folly or accident, put themselves in that position, but there but for the grace of God go I.

And of course there are countless millions in other parts of the world who, even if they do know what Christmas is, may be fearful, or on the road fleeing from violence as we sing about 'Peace on Earth.'

Want is felt most keenly at a time of abundance for others, so please spare a prayer for those for whom Christmas will be a difficult time.  But sometimes prayer is not enough.  It almost feels wrong to pray for the needy and then tuck in while having no intention of doing anything about it.  Not that I think there are any easy answers to this, but perhaps we could think about sharing some of our Christmas cheer beyond our family circles.

But actually I'm chewing over these ideas, not to put a downer on Christmas and make us all guilty, but to try to engage with the Christmas story, as it is found in the Bible.

In Mary, found to be pregnant out of wedlock in 1st century Palestine, you have a story of family tensions.  The nativity looks cute when done by 3 year olds, but stick a poor young couple in a cold stable, half open to the elements, and surrounded by animal excrement and it looks less pretty.  No sterile environment to give birth in here!  Then there are shepherds - in that culture habitual rough sleepers on the edge of acceptable society - and stargazers from the East - to a Jew they would be akin to illegal immigrants.  Then there is Herod, who tends, for some reason (I can't think why?!) to get left out of the children's nativity play.  No sooner is Jesus born than he's on the road as a refugee fleeing violence and bad men with big weapons.

This is the world in which God chose to become incarnate - in which God above became 'Immanuel' (which is Hebrew for 'God with us').  Now, I'm not suggesting you scare your children with gory tales of Herod (though actually they'd probably sit more enthralled as you told it if you did!), but if we make the Christmas story a pretty little escapist tale, we miss its power.

Jesus came to a world of pain and suffering, war and violence - a world of fractured relationships between and within families and communities and nations.  The song of the angels singing, 'Peace in Earth', isn't a sort of backing soundtrack for one lovely starlit night; it's a song of defiance and resistance, and of determination that this world can and will be a better place.

But it doesn't happen overnight.  It happens as we allow the Christ child, 'God with us', to take hold and grow in our ordinary lives in our messy, unjust world.  There is also a season of Advent waiting - of nurturing faith and goodness and letting it put down roots and grow slowly, slowly, defiantly, against all the odds, until it shatters the cold hard stone of indifference and we come to love this broken world as much as God does.

Have a Happy - even Merry - but not an escapist Christmas.

God Bless You.
Alastair