Light Shining in the Darkness

This past weekend has been a celebration of light in one way or another and in that light has been the very best of the true essence of Christmas - a light coming to the world to shine out into the darkness in the depths of our winter.

Our little lights may not have made it for the street "turning on ceremony" on Saturday night (it poured with rain and it was dark - we weren't that keen on going up a stepladder) but on Sunday our little string of icicles joined all the others. The road does look lovely and very festive all decked out in matching (ish) icicle lights, it's just a shame we don't have any snow to go with the icicles.

On Sunday the village turned on the Christmas tree lights on the green (less wet, more wind) and afterwards we piled into the church for hot soup and to celebrate our Christingle. And as we waited for the soup to heat, we stood in a circle around the darkened church and passed the light from our advent candle from christingle to christingle until every candle was lit, and very softly we sang Silent Night and Away in a Manger. Christmas is coming - it's time to get ready!

My fingers having now recovered from the wounds inflicted by pushing cocktail sticks into dolly mixture (surprisingly solid) and raisins (surprisingly small and fiddly) as part of the christingle production line on Sunday morning, I have also managed a little knitting of the Christmas variety. As of a few minutes ago I have two more socks than I had on Friday. They do not match. I believe this is the flaw in my otherwise excellent plan but H has a training course for which he will be away overnight this week so I'll have to rectify that.