About thirty years ago, when our girls were very little, the Church in Bradford that we used to attend held a Christingle service at 4pm on Christmas Eve. Over the years, the Christingle service became a part of our Christmas tradition and we would attend every year, then spend the rest of Christmas Eve with my brother, sister in Law and their two boys, feasting on Pizza and Chinese Takeaway, we certainly knew how to live back then! The Christingle service continued to be a part of our Christmas celebrations, right up to us leaving Yorkshire in 2005, by which time, the service was well known in the area and the Church was packed, squeezing as many children on the pews as we could, then filling the place with lit candles! The health and safety brigade would have had a fit!
Shortly after arriving in Norfolk, we started to hold a Christingle service at the church in Hethersett and once again it became a focal point for many in their journey through Christmas, filling yet another Church at 4pm on Christmas Eve. My lasting memory was one year when unfortunately the heating at Church packed in on the Friday before the Carol Service and it became very apparent that the Christingle service would need to be held in the schoolroom, where we had heating. We literally filled every bit of the floor with children sitting on the floor and adults on chairs at the back, we even had people sitting in the kitchen and watching through the serving hatch and people sitting in the entrance hall, once again causing our health and safety people to twitch.
I had a dilemma, we couldn’t possibly introduce naked flames in such an environment, so, during one hymn, we hatched a plan, for everybody to leave by the fire exit and walk around the building and into the Church sanctuary, collecting their Christingles on the way, one helpful chap had the music for “Away in a manger” on his phone and once everybody was in place around the perimiter of the freezing cold Church, we lit the candles and sang “Away in a manger” to the flickering candle light, it was a magical moment of a very special evening and one that will live with me for a very long time.
As we face Christmas 2020 with all it’s social distancing, mask wearing, bubble challenges, that service on Christmas Eve about eight years ago is a stark reminder to me that when all seems lost and confusing and things don’t appear to function in the old familiar way, we experience some of the most magical and memorable moments. I pray that in years to come, we will look back on Christmas 2020 and say “do you remember…?”