I usually put some kind of kids activity out by the Christmas tree for my Christmas day service. It’s unrealistic to expect kids to focus on a service on Christmas morning. One year I had Dave Walker’s nativity pictures to colour, last year it was origami angels. When they’ve finished we get the pictures, angels or whatever, up on the corner of the altar as part of the worship offering. This year I think we will have Si Smith’s cut-out-and-make nativity figures, again from the Proost site.

Advent i’s bigger than Christmas if you are a University Chaplain – it’s when we celebrate “College Christmas” – a big service and then a week of events (concerts, parties etc) until the teaching term comes to an end. I’m off to print service sheets and put up a tree now. With a little help from my friends…

Cheeringly, though, I have my Beyond Beach Hut Advent Calendar hanging on my fridge, which serves as a dual reminder of summer sunshine in Hove, and that Christmas is coming. I blogged about the real life Advent Beach Hut Calendar last year. If you can get to Brighton and Hove any day in December, it’s going to happen again this year. But you can buy the calendar now from Beyond or Proost.