Yesterday was one of those dull, wet days where it never really got light. I was in town for a meeting which finished around dusk. Emerging into the stidgeon (sp?) gloom, I was struck by the cheery brightness of the lights.

A visual reminder that Advent is about such defiant expression of joy, hope, life...

As the shortest day draws nearer it's good to be surprised by moments of lightness and brightness.

Whilst searching a well known online store, I stumbled across "The Epic Party Game: Santa vs Jesus" and I think I am going to treat myself to it, and, hopefully persuade a few folk to join me in playing it over the "holidays".

It's a great play on the annual festive conundrum or tension that faces those of us who profess to be Christian. 

Rightly, we wonder if we should refuse to join in the make believe with our children/grandchildren because how are they to believe what we say about Christ if what we say about Father Christmas is, for want of a better word, lies.

And yet there is another way of looking at it that moves beyond true/false fact/fiction binary distinctions to truth-bearing.

The stories and customs around St Nicholas have very early origins and arose from generosity to people who were poor.  Anonymous gift-giving is a wonderful thing.

My former boss used to say, with a twinkle in his eye, that it must be true, becuase it happens every year... he didn't mean he believed in a literal Sannta Claus, he meant that the spirit or essence of Christmas was an important truth re-enacted, however badly, year in, year out.

Even the theologian John Hull used Father Christmas in his excellent work "What Stops Christain Adults from Learning" (a clever and inspired choice because of precisely the parallels with the Victorian, sentimental nativity).

So, Santa versus Jesus?  Well Jesus wins, for me, every time because his story is richer and fuller and more demanding.  But Santa... well, on the whole he seems to be pretty harmless, it's human greed that turns him into a money-grabbing monster!

Will you be hanging up your stocking or pillow case? Will you set up a nativity scene?  Either, both, neither? Whatever you decide, I hope your Advent and Christmas have a winning formula.

Yesterday a very small group of us were in the church building taking out the last remaining bits and pieces (mostly to the dump), swtiching off all non-essential power supplies, checking the alarms, and, where needed, changing or adding locks.

One of the very last things to be lifted down, from a long abandoned corner, was this 'welcome' sign.  Alas it is damp and probably carries spores of mildew so we had to let it go, but the sentiments remain.

Welcome - or its absence - is a self-evident Advent theme.  We have created a whole myth of inhospitable inn-keepers, and invented a stable, from a tiny detail in Luke's birth narrative.  And in so-doing we have discovered, or expressed, an important truth about human nature, the suspicion of 'other', the challenge of 'one demand too many' and of course the Biblical/faith-based imperative to welcome the stranger.

I find myself pondering welcome in two directions/dimensions...

First, and probably more important, to whom can, should and will I extend a welcome?

Secondly, where, when and how do I recognise myself being welcomed by others... i.e. I am alert enough to recognise it when it happens?

Long train journeys are an opportunity for all sorts of things - from sleeping to gazing out of the windows, to reading, to working and, in this case, writing Christmas cards.

I send a lot of Christmas cards, and I mean a LOT.  Yesterday I spent around four hours writing cards and still I need to buy and write more.

Sharing this on social media produced some interesting responses... I am, it seems, inceasingly unusual to send cards at all, or at least to send them in any quantity.  The secret is, for all it's a HUGE undertaking, and that I have streamlined it in recent years so that cards are simply "the next one out of the box" and messages limited to about 20 words maximum, I love the opportunity it gives me to pause, however fleetingly, and remember times spent with those to whom they will be sent.

This Victorian invention, hence the mushy sentimentality I suppose, is one that is always part of my Advent.  Usually I like to hand out cards at church on Advent 3, this year it didn't happen, but Advent 4 is still a full week before Christmas, so I think I can get away with it.

Yesterday I ran out of cards (I have more ordered which should soon reach me) and found myself pondering how blessed I am to have so many people in my life to whom I want to send a quick greeting at least once a year.

I wonder what personal traditions are part of your Advent preparations?

Beware of practising your piety before people... or of posting pictures of your charitable giving!

By the wonders of advance posting, this is written on Saturday to appear on Monday.

This is my gift bag for Refuweegee... I bought a ladies' back-pack handbag thing and started to fill it with the requisite items... and soon it was overflowing.  So I bought a sponge bag into which I placed the toiletries. Then to keep it all together, I placed the two into a sturdy 'bag for life' except that said "Team GB" and was decked out in lions, so that wouldn't really do, and I popped the whole thing into a jolly Christmas gift bag!!

The shopping for the items I needed proved quite challenging...

What kind of book so you buy for someone for whom English might be their umpteenth language? I found a beautiful photographic book about Glasgow.

What might signify 'Scotland'? A teddy bear with a saltire tee-shirt and a mug depicting landmarks in Glasgow.

What sort of notebook would be a nice gift?  Which brand of shower gel? What foodstuffs would be enjoyed rather than confusing? And so on...

I spent almost seven hours trekking round shops today - at least three times as much as I would normally do - and in the end I filled my gift bag more or less to my satisfaction.

I had fun, and I hope the person (female age 14+) who receives it enjoys opening it and using its contents.

Buying gifts for a stranger.... I suppose that's a bit like the Magi who travel the weeks of Advent along the window cills of 'high' churches bearing exotic and seemignly inappropriate gifts for a child.  Suppose instead that Refuegypt had existed and drawn up a list, I wonder what might have featured on that!

Choosing and wrapping presents... very much part of Advent as it's lived.  And I will be travelling one of my 1000 mile-ish day trips when this goes live, taking the gifts I chose for my mother and hoping that she, too, will enjoy some surprises as well as some practical things.

Enjoy your own choosing and wrapping, whatever form it takes.