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…

In particular, if you are planning your Carols, there are lots of resources there - new and traditional carols, and ideas about how and when to use them to best effect.

Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas – this year it falls on Sunday 29th November, or the evening of the 28th if you start with the vigil.

The Advent calendars and candles you can buy in shops always start on 1st December. But if you want a candle that actually lasts right through advent, you’ll need to make your own.

Take a tall, slender candle – a 12″ dinner candle is ideal. The symbolic colours are purple for Advent, symbolising fasting and preparation, or white for the revelation of Christ. (You can get red ones too,but I think that’s just because it’s christmassy)

Then take a ruler and felt tip pen. Start about an inch from the bottom so there’s enough candle to stand up. Then mark all the way up the candle, twenty-six evenly spaced segments.

You can then simply use your felt tip pen to mark the dates (starting at the top) 29, 30, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., all the way to 24 at the bottom

If you want to make your candle very beautiful you could cut a tiny notch at each place and mark with gold paint, although be warned that it tends to sizzle slightly when it burns.

You then choose a time every day when you can burn one segment. A slender candle takes 10-20 minutes, depending on the length, width and quality of wax.

What to do while the candle burns? You might like to make a family commitment to eat breakfast or dinner together while it burns. Or you could use the time to sit in silence, or read, or pray. Advent is traditionally a time of waiting: you could pray every day for a person or place that is waiting for news, or peace, or healing.

Steve Taylor suggested in the comments here praying every day for one place or person that needs blessing.

I once read a charming story about a child who cut off a section of the family advent candle because there was an emergency (something to do with a birth, I think) and he thought he could make time go faster by shortening the candle. Does anyone remember where the story comes from?

In a few days I’ll tell you how to make an Advent wreath.

Andy is a regular commenter here, and a firefighter, and he has added a comment below as a safety reminder, which seem especially important after the sad events of Bonfire night:  never leave candles burning unattended, and keep them out of the way of curtains and clothes. And if you have long hair, be very careful indeed around candles!

THe BBC has a piece on how to "cope" with Christmas and not get into debt. "Make a budget and stick to it," it says, which is of course a smart idea.

But here's an even more radical idea: cut down your idea of what's required. The expectations we place on ourselves for Christmas, weddings and all sorts of other celebrations are completely out of hand: sure, if you are minted, enjoy it, but you do not have to spend seventeen grand on a wedding, or two grand on Christmas.

If you're on a tight budget, call your family and friends and tell them you're not doing presents this year, or only doing £5 presents, or whatever you can afford and invite them to do the same. (I just did that). They might even be very glad someoone else takes the initiative. And think realistically about what people really can eat in two or three days. Most families chuck out half a turkey a few days after Christmas (or they freeze it and then chuck it out six months later). Try buying an ordinary chicken instead, or two if there's a houseful. Four pounds buys enough carrots, parsnips and potatoes (especially if you shop at Aldi) to have roast veg for a week.

What do you really need to celebrate? Some warmth. Some friends. Enough to eat. Goodwill to all.

Lower expectations, cut out the stress, and raise the enjoyment factor.

There are, of course, all sorts of reasons for this – who pays for the print and delivery etc etc. But "charity" on the front doesn't necessarily mean that much of your spend is actually going to Charity. Some cards say on the back of the pack how much – like 5p for every card sold.

If you are seriously bothered about giving to Charity, CardsForGoodCauses gives back 75p in the £1 (that's 75% if maths isn't your strong point) and often ordering direct from a charity catalogue  is more effective.

ALternatively – and here's a radical idea which might just take off in the current postal strike crisis – make your own cards for a few people, send emails to everyone else, and just give some money to a charity. That will be something closer to 100% – as long as you check that the charity of your choice is using the money efficiently and not skimming off a large percentage for running costs.  Jimmy's Nightshelter is one of our Chapel's regular charities, and it has a fantastic record of getting the funds direct to charitable activity.

You can get involved with the campaign in two key ways…

Buy a bus stop
– Posters on bus shelters will display a painting by the renowned
artist, Andrew Gadd, in which he depicts the nativity scene in a modern
day equivalent of a stable – a bus shelter. Buy a bus stop here!

Buy radio
– Our radio adverts cleverly and light-heartedly set the nativity in
the context of a soccer match, a horse race, a police car chase and
even the Christmas pop chart countdown. Find out how to organize a
radio campaign in your area here!

Church leaders across the denominations have welcomed the campaign and are urging churches to get involved.

Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon, says: "This year's atheist bus adverts
backfired (for the atheists) by putting God on the public agenda and
provoking people to ask if he is there. Well, Christians now have a
chance to say a firm and confident 'Yes, and he looks like Jesus!
Christmas is his festival.'" 

In the course of writing my current book (to be published next year) I bought this marvellous book of Christmas poems by U A Fanthorpe. It really is the business – each double spread is a poem she wrote and an illustration by her partner, which they originally created to send as Christmas cards. Some are religous and others not; some are comical and some more serious. It’s quite brilliant, and would make a great resource for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany services, as well as a fab Christmas present.

I have to 'fess up – I'm biased. Part of my job at Robinson College is overseeing the work of the Chapel Choir. Earlier this year they recorded this set of musical items for Advent/Christmas, including the fabulously gorgeous Franz Biebl "Ave Maria" (my perosnal favourite), a lovely performance of Britten's Ceremony of Carols, some Haydn, Rachmaninov, Kodaly and more.

I think this is the first of 20+ albums I've been directly involved in where I didn't sing, play, conduct, write or direct. I did some of the production, and a small amount of vocal coaching. The rest of the time I directed operations from On High as Executive Producer.

I have to say I'm pretty proud of it… it sounds way better than most amateur recordings, and looks absolutely beautiful thanks to the lovely artwork of a grad student. Go on, treat yourself

Beginnings are important because Advent anticipates the coming of Christ into the world; because candles in the Advent wreath represent the signs of new beginnings through the salvation story – the journey of the Patriarchs, the promises of the Prophets, the announcement of John the Baptist and the conception of Christ. As well as writing about these themes, I also look at the way each of the four gospel writers begins their gospel. In literary terms, what does their starting point tell us about the way they are telling the story?

Advent is also about Endings, because it anticipates the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world as we know it. That’s an idea shrouded in mystery, but it reminds us that every new beginning implies an end of something else.

Most of our lives, of course, are lived in between, with dozens of small scale beginnings and endings going on in and around our daily lives. Births and marriages, deaths and funerals, promotions, redundancies, retirements, graduations… all these milestones lead us through endings and beginnings. The characters in the story of salvation also lived through these, and we can trace through their stories some wisdom as we live through our own.

This book was a labour of love; lots of stories close to my own heart, lots of ideas I have carried around in my head that never had an outlet. It was fun to write (though Kathryn, David, Jason and Caroline, who read and critiqued the drafts for me will no doubt remind me of the moments when I said "why did I ever say yes to this???). I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.   

available on amazon stateside from 21 september

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

U.A. Fanthorpe (born 1929)

more reflections on Advent and Christmas here