It's the most wonderful time of the year......

Groan.  It's that time of year again, already.  It is Christmas.  The most wonderful time of the year.  A time of love and joy, faces aglow, yada yada yada.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas but I also dislike it.  Why?  Well, allow me my rant. 

I cannot stand the materialism of it all.  From the point of view of my faith (and my heart) it is about celebrating the Lord's birth.  About realising the amazing gift that we have been given; it's about understanding the beginning of a journey that displayed God's love to us and much more.  I could go on but for those of you with faith, you know what I'm getting at.  

I hate the adverts at Christmas which tell people that if they do not buy presents that cost hundreds of pounds for their loved ones, then they don't really love them.  I hate adverts that encourage people to get into debt so that they can have "a good Christmas".  I hate that the real message of Christmas has been lost and so now there is unnecessary stress, debt, pressure and depression that is associated with Christmas.  "Love your fellow man and demonstrate this by buying a £150 camera for him.  Do not deprive your six year old and psychologically scar them for life, buy them the brand new iPad".  Bah humbug.  

I do love the celebration of Jesus' birth.  I love that I get to spend this special time of year with my family.  I love that everyone tries that bit harder to be kinder to each other.  I love the excitement of the children when they decorate the tree.  I love the stupid 'stressful' bits that make me laugh and add to the fun of Christmas.  I realised this the other day as I was pondering as to why I get tense at various activities associated with Christmas.  Let me share some of these with you.

Shopping. To begin with, I get stressed and terrified at the thought of Christmas shopping.  My reasons are justified.  I'm nearly 6ft tall which naturally makes me invisible to everybody in a shopping centre, especially at Christmas.  People literally charge at me and try to walk through me!  I have been out shopping and come home with a cut leg from a man who smacked a box into me and carried on walking; bruises from people barging me out the way and a spinning head where they literally spin me right round sometimes.  My friends found this hard to believe, as did the Raving Rev, until they shopped with me and witnessed it for themselves.  Needless to say, they found this hilarious.  I found it disturbing.  I have found a solution for it - New Rock boots!  People don't see me but they notice the boots.  The one woman who did not notice the boots and charged at me soon noticed me when the boots made contact with her shins.  No, I did not kick her on purpose but there isn't much you can do when someone is intent on walking through you as you're going forward.  So if you are also invisible, grab yourself a pair of New Rocks, they rock hahaha.  

Shopping also holds the memory for me where I did kind of end up in a fight with a woman over a bar of chocolate.  It was the most surreal thing and I couldn't believe it happened.  Years ago I went into Woolworths (that's how long ago!) to get myself some pick and mix.  I was feeling particularly sorry for myself (that was the day I got the cut leg from the manic man in the manic Christmas crowd) and needed sweets.  Whilst in there I noticed that there was a bar of Bournville chocolate left on the sweet rack.  At that time the Raving Rev loved Bournville chocolate and I thought that would make a nice wee stocking present for him.  So I went over and reached out to pick it up.  As I did, out of nowhere (I swear there was no-one near the sweets as I approached them) a woman's hand came and shoved mine out of the way.  She wanted the chocolate bar.  I was shocked at her rudeness and would normally just walk away moaning but I'd been trying to do Christmas shopping.  I had received 36 bruises and a cut leg.  I was far from happy and peaceful.  I was a woman on the edge who only wanted a bar of chocolate to take home to her other half.  I glowered at her and shoved her hand out of the way.  I grabbed the bar of chocolate and heard her tut.  The next thing I knew, she slapped my hand!  This insane woman actually slapped my hand.  Here it began, here was the stand off.  A possible PMT woman who was on a chocolate craving versus a tall, irate, fed-up, battered and bruised redhead.  It was on.  I grabbed a Snickers bar and smacked her in the nose with it; she grabbed a fruit and nut bar and whacked me over the head with; I grabbed a caramel cup and shoved it up her nose........ok, no I didn't.  I wanted too but I didn't.  What actually happened when she smacked my hand was that I did the only thing that I could do.  I grabbed the chocolate bar, whacked her on the back of the hand with it, and walked off to pay for it.  Amazingly, the chocolate bar wasn't broken haha.  Peace and goodwill to all men?  Not when it comes to Christmas shopping and chocolate bars.    

Then there is the wrapping of the presents - the conspiracy of the wrapping paper and cellotape.  Why does it take hours to wrap one single present yet seconds to tear it off?  Every year I spend hours wrapping presents.  Usually there are casualities.  Like the time the dog decided to help me and we both ended up being bound together in a ball with the cellotape wrapped tightly and firmly around us.  The doorbell rang and I had to half roll, walk and carry myself and the dog to the door.  The salesman looked shocked and then asked the most stupid question I've ever heard "Is this a bad time?".  He didn't even help to unstick us!

The cellotape that always curls back on itself and ends up in an unusable ball.  The way the cellotape manages to end up in my hair and stuck to my eyebrows (no?  Am I the only one this happens to?).  The labels and pens that always disappear.  The paper that rips just as you've stuck the last piece of cellotape on grrrr.  Oh the joys.  

After all this is the fun bit of ripping open the presents on Christmas morning.  I have a very fond memory of this.  I had managed to get the Raving Rev a signed, first edition, hardback book that he wanted.  I carefully wrapped it, put a lovely ribbon on it and a big bow.  I handed it over to him with a big smile and watched in, at first pleasure and then horror as he ripped the paper off and at the same time ripped right through the dustcover of the book.  Thus rendering the semi-valuable, hard to get book, worthless.  He looked at me with a sheepish grin whilst my dad restrained me to stop me from strangling him.  

I also have the brilliant memory of the time the Raving Rev and I received the best gifts in the world which has then rendered us pains ever since as we now want nothing else at Christmas.  My mum and dad saved up and decided to treat the Raving Rev to a 32GB iPod.  He had wanted one for so long and we had no hope of getting him one as they were to expensive.  Well on that Christmas morning my mum saved that present until last and bought it out for him.  He was so overwhelmed that he began to tear up, awww.  This made my mum get a bit tearful and my dad also welled up.  Then, unknown to me, my mum produced a present for me.  It was the Canon digital SLR that I had been longing for.  Never in a million years did I think that I would get it.  I was so happy that I started crying.  Proper sobbing and honking crying.  This made the Raving Rev start to sob, my mum started to wail and my dad left the room sobbing.  I bought the house down like a pack of cards!  It was a wonderful Christmas and makes me smile and giggle every time I think of it (and give my camera a little hug).  

So we've done the shopping, wrapped the presents, ripped the wrapping off the presents (and ripped the presents), up next is the food.  Two memories fly to mind here.  The first was where we had langoustines for starters.  The Raving Rev and my mum were ripping the heads and tails off them like savages and stuffing the innards into their mouths.  My dad and I sat there, at the table, watching this massacre in horror.  We tried to prise our langoustines out of their shells but they were having none of it.  According to the Raving Rev,our hands are too soft.  My dad and I gave up trying to eat them and just watched, in morbid fascination, as my mum and the RR disemboweled the langoustines and ate them.  I felt like I was watching some sort of strange nature programme, like when the seals grab the penguins or the lions get the zebras.  A bizarre sensation to have at the Christmas dinner table. 

Later that day, after a little bit of alcohol, the Raving Rev decided to resurrect the langoustines and retrieved them from the bin.  He then placed them on each of his fingers and put on a disturbing langoustine puppet show for all of us.  My mum laughed, so did my dad and I sat there proudly thinking "Good grief, I'm going out with that".  

Another meal memory was where we all sat down to the Christmas dinner.  My dad decided to carve the turkey but couldn't get much meat off it.  We were all surprised and disappointed, given the size of the turkey.  Still we had a lovely dinner with merriment and laughter.  It was only the next day that we realised that the turkey had been put onto the plate UPSIDE-DOWN!  Duh.  None of us had noticed and yet, in all the photos, you could clearly see it was upside-down.  Says a lot for my family.

So I've rambled and rambled and shared a couple of memories.  Despite the materialism and lost message, I love Christmas.  I love the memories it creates.  I'm thankful for those that I get to share Christmas with.  Even though I don't appreciate them at the moments they happen, even the stressful bits are fun.  Like yesterday's shopping for a Christmas tree with my mum.  Four hours we were out looking for a tree!  We drove about 50 miles!  We visited what felt like 20 different places.  We laughed, then grumbled, then started sobbing as we couldn't find one.  I accidentally strangled my mum in the garden centre.  In the end, in the pitch black, we found one.  It's waiting to be decorated.  I'll wait for the Raving Rev to do that, I'm not sure there's enough alcohol in the house to get me through that with a smile haha.  

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas.  Laugh at the stressful bits.  Know that you are loved.   
Be blessed.
xxx        

Seeing God Work

I've been away working at a Christian summer youth camp for a week and what an amazing week it was!  I felt truly blessed and honoured to be there.  What happened?  Well, grab a cuppa and a biscuit, put your feet up and read on. 

I should probably explain what this camp was so that you understand.  Camp was not 'camping', there was not a tent in sight or, needless to say, I would not have been there.  After my last experience with a tent where the inflatable bed started to deflate during the night which made my husband and I roll together and get stuck in the middle of the darn thing with 2 inflated sides which would allow no escape; ducks who insisted on doing a night raid around our tent and thought it was great fun to try and pull the guy ropes out; camping on the side of a hill (hubby's great idea) so that we awoke in the morning down the bottom of the tent where we had slid down with the dog on top of our heads, I'm not a lover of camping.  This camp was a residential setting where adult leaders and approximately 43 teenagers stayed in dorms in a fantastic old building (nice comfy beds and warm showers, my kinda camping).  We had morning and evening meetings where we learnt about God, built friendships and throughout the day we had outdoor activities.  Ah the activities...more about them later.  

It's hard to know where to begin when telling this story.  Do I start at the very beginning of the journey where my husband directed me to the wrong ferry port at 6am and I then had to race in my car to the other ferry port at high speed, praying all the way, cursing all the cute fluffy bunnies that kept leaping out on us and trying to make us crash and listening to my husband sob and squeak "I want to live!  I want to live!  Please God, I want to live"?  

Maybe I should start during the leaders training weekend, a behind the scenes look where we invented ceilidh style extreme ping pong (or table tennis, no table necessary).  I never knew ping pong could be so viscous nor how much a ping pong ball hurts when it hits you in the face (thanks to the very tall dude for that who then brutally laughed, you know who you are!).  Or when we all played catapults by tying together elastic bands, attaching the elastic bands to our big toes and then 'pinged' bits of paper at one another.  Again, this is very painful when you've got a young, strong American lad who pings the paper at your face and who is then rude enough to avoid all the bits of paper you try to ping back at him grrrr.  

It was a serious training weekend but the fun bits are, well, fun.  Our serious bits were good and everything was going well until the leaders had to say which activities they would do.  As I said earlier, there were activities most of which were outdoor ones, I'm sure you can possibly see where this is going with me.  We began with canoeing and kayaking, faces turned to me.  Um, no, I can't swim.  Ok, next activity - caving.  Me "Are you serious?  Look how tall I am?  I'm sure it's against health and safety regulations to put someone my size into a tight, dark hole".  Ok, next....mountain biking.  When I managed to catch my breath from laughing they realised that the answer was probably no.  The last time I was on a bike I was 8 years old and as soon as I climbed on it I promptly fell off.  I'm also, only ever so slightly unfit.  Not biking then.  I wasn't offered the high ropes as I had never done it before and couldn't tie off the ropes....awww but I really wanted to do that one, ahem.  Sailing - can't swim.  Gorge walking - seriously?  Why would I want to go for a walk where I'll get soaked?  If I wanted that I'd go out in the rain.  Crafts - YES, I mean, yeah sure!  I can do crafts.  I am brilliant at stick men.  Crafts is good and no-one else seemed too keen to do them.  For the sake of the other leaders, I'll take the crafts hahaha.  I also volunteered to do the first aid with the teenagers.  This sadly did not happen due to the paramedic unfortunately breaking her ankle, I kid you not.  

So with the training weekend over and done with the leaders waited with baited breath for the teenagers to come (and while we waited we ate jam doughnuts - it was tough week haha).  The teens came and the week began and I truly don't know how to explain it.  Going into every detail would take too long and become boring.  Skimming over it makes it sound unimportant, so how do I tell you about it.  Perhaps in the way that my memory works.  Laughter, singing, eating together and laughing and joking, the meetings where we read the bible and learnt together, the small groups where we gathered to discuss what we had learnt during the meetings, drinking tea and sitting in the sun talking about favourite bands and music, wet teens running around when they came back from a wet activity, funny stories and the list goes on.  

My treasured memories are during the small groups, a twelve year old taught me something about my faith that, although I had heard it a hundred times before, had never really taken it in and understood it.  Their simple outlook and explanation really hit home with me and blew me away and the smile on their face when I told them that they had taught me something was amazing.  Sitting outside in the sun, drinking tea, discussing a band with a teen that we both love.  I loved this conversation because we went from discussing our love for the music to how in the lyrics you could hear that these people have everything that a lot of people long for (fame, money etc) but are desperately lonely and unhappy.  This led to discussing the Christian faith, topics we had covered earlier in the week and then back to the music.  It was a natural flowing conversation and it was great to connect with the young people and to hear their views and thoughts.  Watching the youngsters participate in the talent show - we had a rapper, a guitarist, a rocker (who did Paint It Black, totally rocked), a singer (Your song) which brought tears to my eyes and a dance act (cha cha slide).  These youngsters were fantastic!  I was so proud of each and every one of them for being brave enough to get up there and perform and their gifts were amazing.  They bought tears to my eyes and I'm not one that easily cries.  Finally, my most treasured memory, on the last morning, the youngsters were asked to remain standing if they had experienced God throughout the week or had decided to have a relationship with Him.  In all honesty, I expected most of them to sit down.  In truth, only 5 or 6 sat down.  Out of 43 children, about 37 teenagers remained standing for God.  To see God working in them, touching their lives, it was awesome and humbling.  I was astounded and yes, I cried.  The beauty, seeing God work, witnessing this was brilliant.  I struggle to try and describe it.  Amazing.  

So after this, we made sure that our youngsters knew about clubs, meetings, etc that they could come along to so that they can grow within the faith.  Then it was time to say goodbye.  There were tears, photos, hugs, waving and suddenly it was quiet.  The leaders packed away all the tech stuff, checked the dorms were clean and that was us away.  Of course, my story doesn't quite end there.  

In my small car I had 4 people and something like 8 bags/cases (I was giving lifts to the train station).  Hubby was squashed into the back along with a suitcase and tall dude who had his suitcase on his lap with our youngster in the front (who couldn't help but giggle and occasionally mention the leg room that they plenty of).  Well, I had to stop for ferry tickets (yes another ferry) and as I came out of the shop I saw hubby squeezing back into the car.  I thought that I would be helpful and closed the back door as I got in so that he wouldn't have to.  Instead of a thank you I was greeted with a howl and a moan that I had now hurt his side.  Tut, no gratitude.  On the ferry, tall dude, youngster and I are chatting whilst hubby is mumbling away to himself.  On the road hubby carries on moaning that it hurt when I shut the door.  After a while I told him to shut up and stop being such a drama queen.  I had apologised and I won't shut the door for him again.  Well, after a hospital trip on Sunday, turns out I'd busted his ribs when I shut the door, oops.  That's me eating humble pie then.  

God bless.