December 4/5 Advent Gratitude

Today the school on my street was having a Christmas fete. In aid of social distancing, parents in the neighbourhood were enlisted to create stations in a Christmas themed treasure hunt. So all afternoon small groups of children and their parents passed up and down looking for clues. It was a quieter fete but there was still something wonderful about the way parents and children found a way to mark the holiday.

Yesterday my daughter’s school invited us to a Zoom Christmas service. We watched teenagers who had given hours of their time rehearsing sing beautiful old songs, some with lyrics hundreds of years old. It was my last ever school Christmas service and this morning I was nostalgic, remembering all the years spent cheering other people’s children and my own, year after year, Christmas after Christmas, from first stumbling, distracted, nervous and excited pre-schoolers to teenagers whose interest lags far behind their parents.

Today I am grateful for each one of them.