Christmas Day at the Gathering Place... and lunch for almost forty... despite severe weather and absolutely no public transport they kept arriving until we had a full house...

A Japanese PhD student... a squaddie... people with addictions... elderly spinsters... Nigerian post grads... people with mental health problems...  church folk giving up their day to cook or serve... 

All around one table. 

You tell me that's not a foretaste of the heavenly banquet...

(In the end there were three spare seats, possibly because people ate standing up, I like to imagine they were just in case the Holy Family showed up...)