Christingle

Christingle to me is usually celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Advent or maybe Christmas Eve. In our area, however, we had our Christingle on the 1st Sunday of Advent, which was yesterday. It was a lovely start to the Christmas season for us. We trudged through the snow to a VERY cold church and celebrated a lovely children's' service with about 20 other families from our area.

Moo spotted the sweets on hers within seconds and devoured them one by one, quite quickly. It took a little skill to pull them off the cocktail stick, but she soon mastered this. Her eyes then wandered to everyone else's Christingles and anyone within her reach would find themselves a sweet or two short. By contrast Beanie clutched onto his preciously, gripping it tight to his chest. He kept setting it down on the bench to admire it and mutter different things about it, before picking it back up again and clutching it tightly. At the end of the service we all lit our Christingles, Beanie did his usual Happy Birthday/blow out the candle within seconds of it being lit, so after attempt number 3 we gave up. The Church looked lovely lit by the light from our Chritingles, on a cold, snowy November afternoon.

On the way home in the car, the thermometer display thingemy read -6. It felt like it too.

For anyone who doesn't know.... the orange represents the world, the red ribbon around the world represents the blood of Christ, the candle represents Jesus as the light of the world and the sweets (sometimes raisins) represent the fruit of the earth, ie the harvest.