Choosing Love on Christmas Eve
I know you are nostalgic for those magical Christmas Eve gatherings where we crowd into our sanctuaries to sing and light candles together. We love our celebratory services this time of the year, look forward to welcoming the extra visitors that pour into our joyful sanctuaries from the dark winter’s night.
But this year, it is not to be. We will not be gathering together, but be quite apart. And given the new restrictions beginning on Boxing Day, with all travel curtailed, and visiting discouraged, it will be quite a different Christmastide.
But you may have noticed, that what we are missing are the important things. We are missing one another’s company. We are missing seeing one another’s faces. We are missing laughing and singing and being together. We took these simple pleasures for granted. We forgot to notice how important it was to gather in gentle company, to hug one another, to sit together around a feast table.
This year, I hope you will take time to really consider the simple matters in your life, the people that are important to you. Sit quietly and pray for them. Sit quietly and bless them. And when the time comes for us to gather again, hopefully, we will see through new eyes, Christ filled eyes, eyes of love that offer welcome and joyfulness to everyone.
May the Christmas Eve podcast this year be a blessing to you. Bruce and I and the choir created it with love, and we send that love along to all of you,
Candice
“For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered,
no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated.
There are only children, women and men to be loved.”
Thanks from Bobbi Johnson and the Shelburne Hamper Assistance Team
Bobbi Johnson sent this note along to us.
The months of preparation, pivoting and pleasure (alliteration so early...nice) came to a wonderful conclusion on Saturday!
The hamper need was up about 38% over last year but the giving was up to an even greater percentage. I am overwhelmed with the support of our small community and more specifically how community partners have come together to accommodate our “real estate” needs. Your kind use of the church for our toys was amazing and I hope it can become an annual event as we all thought it was SO much better for all involved.
Thank you so much for everything you have done to make this year a huge success.
“As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbour, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us.”
Hampers, Toys, Shoes, and Shepherd’s Cupboard
Trinity United Church was delighted to be able to offer their sanctuary space to Bobbi Johnson, who was organizing the toys that went out to families who were gifted with hampers in the community. With the pandemic, Bobbi and her team of volunteers needed a large space in which to spread things out, as only two families could come in to choose the toys at a time. And while our sanctuary was put to good use upstairs, Alexandra Georgakopoulos and her team from Shelburne Chiropractic were busy collecting and organizing close to 2000 pairs of shoes downstairs. Similarly, they needed space to spread out the shoes so parents could select them safely. So grateful to be able to offer our space to help the neighbourhood initiatives.
Beth Brown and Gwynn McGhee
Primrose United Church was also busy in the neighbourhood, donating $1700 to our local food bank, Shepherd’s Cupboard. This was the proceeds from their wonderfully successful - and beautiful - Christmas Country Market. Grateful thanks to Gwynn McGhee, Faye Allen, and Phylis Robinson who organized the market. The food bank, as you may imagine, is being well used these days, and all donations are much appreciated.
Our Advent Jars
A special thank you to our care group leaders from both churches who put our advent mason jars together. I hope that you have been taking them out each day through the season. I have heard from so many of you about your little daily routines. Here is a little note I received from someone really enjoying their advent days.
Here's my little Advent Corner. (see in photo above) I love the concept of being able to observe Advent when we can't be in Church. I love to listen to you and Bruce sing in the podcasts. I even love the podcasts and I love that I can listen to them anytime I want and anywhere I want. I love this little corner and the little elf that found me under a tree waiting for you to come out so I could talk to you at the Christmas market. I love the person in the workshop who put the mason jars together. I love pulling out a new tag each day. I especially love the tag I pulled out on Thursday that said I should drink some hot peppermint cocoa. I love the fact that I had just bought some white chocolate peppermint cocoa. I also love that Gwynn gave me a peppermint candy cane at the market to stir my hot chocolate.
I have lost count but I think I have enough love things "noted" here to finish off my tag from Friday which said to send 10 notes of love out with abandon and now that is actually what I am going to do now.
WOW And Mission and Service
Here is our United Church of Canada Mission and Service Advent Christmas Appeal. Our Shelburne Primrose Pastoral Charge is committed to giving close to $7,000 to Mission and Service, so if you would like to contribute to this valuable work, you can designate that giving with any Christmas gifts you may have in mind.
Here is our Western Ontario Waterways Region Newsletter. Take a look at what is going on. Your can read Mary Hawthorne’s report in our Christmas newsletter. Both Mary and Shirley Farnell are our two WOW representatives. They attend the bi yearly conferences, and keep us up to date on what is going on in the region.