The After Party: Part 1: Christmas Again
The tree is down and the lights have been clumsily stuffed in a box (mainly as a treat for your future self who has to grumpily unravel them next year!) The new year's resolutions have been made and possibly broken. The recovery from the turkey overdose has run ts course. (I've gone cold turkey since boxing day.)
To cut this all short...christmas is over. We've done that. We can take the nativity set from the mantlepiece and pack it away until next christmas. Christmas is over? Isn't it?
When I was working at a summer camp on Cape Cod in 2005 (I think) we celebrated Christmas on July 25th. We watched the film Elf on "Christmas" Eve (July 24th.) We then had a day of Christmas themed activities and told the story of Christmas over the day. It was odd...and yet it was wonderful. It was the same story but as we took it out of the mayhem of the Christmas period it came alive again. It wasn't a story we tell just because it is December. It was a story which we told because it needs telling.
So...
In this post Christmas period, let's continue the party...an afterparty if you will...and relook at the Christmas story. Let's tell the story because it is a story that is too important and vital to stop talking about just because January has arrived. We'll, therefore, be blogging about Christmas from a few different angles over the coming days and weeks. We'll be telling the story of a baby who was full of light, promise, hope, peace, the future, and so so so much more. It is going to be great.
This blog post was brought to you by....Oli Higham.
Oli Higham is part of the leadership team at the Rock Community Church. He finds it hard to sum himself up in a few sentences. However he loves Jesus and is also rather fond of his family, films, coffee, rugby, Arsenal FC, poetry, spray paint, beards, cooking and laughing.