December 20, 2024
I have loved seeing your nativity scenes, and hearing their stories. It reminds me how important our traditions are, and how they get passed on through the generations. Here are the last of the ones that I have received.
This week … you get two blogs. Later today or early tomorrow I will share some thoughts about the winter solstice/longest night and an ancient place outside of Dublin that I visited that honours the rhythms of light and dark in the world.
Then I will be taking a bit of a break for a couple of weeks. I will be around, and will lead worship on December 29th and toast the New Year with you after the worship service. But unless there is a pastoral emergency I will be laying low, enjoying visits with family and friends, reading and knitting by the fire, and perhaps even enjoying a drop of Writers Tears (isn’t that a great name for an Irish whiskey?).
I will see many of you in the next couple of weeks at church, but to those I don’t, many blessings of this season and safe travels if you are traveling. It is a privilege serving as your minister over these past 5 months and I look forward to the next 7
We begin this week’s sharing with Dana.
Dana writes: This was purchased in Calgary, AB and given by Jeff and I to my parents for the first Christmas we spent apart. When my parents died, I began to display it each year. It’s wooden blocks so the grandkids have been able to play with the Nativity scene. Mom added a Christmas Star ornament from her collection, and it sort of stuck. It’s likely over 50 years old.
This next one, which is hanging outside the church office when you come in the Joseph Howe entrance, is one that the Sunday School made a couple of years ago. Louisa shares this:
That was our first big project post-Covid. We made the pattern together, and then chose the background fabrics, which I cut and pieced together. We had great fun deciding what the hills and fields would look like, and deciding how to arrange the buttons. These are mostly shank-backed buttons, so we had to make holes in the fabric to push the backs through, and then secure them with a safety pin. The children had great fun learning to use the sewing stiletto to make the holes!
Working on this project gave us a lot of time to talk together, and reconnect as a Sunday School community as in-person worship resumed. You get to have great conversations when you’re gathered around a project, taking turns in deciding where to place various elements and then actually doing the work to bring your idea to life. The children enjoyed it so much that we went on to make a quilt next!
These two are from Mavis Hicks and Ian Parker:
It belonged to Mavis, gifted by an old friend. It was brought to this house when we married moved here in 1994. One "wise guy" is missing. The other is a teeny, tiny wooden one from Germany.
And finally, for your viewing pleasure, a video the Bethany youth group made several years ago (2017 or 2018?) with their version of the Christmas Story. Many thanks to Kyla Mills who edited this down from the larger worship service video. Recognize anyone you know? Enjoy!
also, just received these pictures taken by Karen Finley of last Sunday’s Living Nativity event.
