Christmas Eve 2013 - Last few hours before Christmas Day

I can't believe we've made it. Neither can the Downstairs Cat, from the look of her.

In an hour's time I will set off through the rain to the Midnight Communion Service, and Christmas will begin.

Everything that needed to be done has been done. Those things left undone can wait until later.

It's now a good time to enjoy some peace and quiet, watch the Advent candle burn, eat the last Advent chocolate (although His calendar, unlike mine, goes up to the 25th).

Now that I have a detailed plan of campaign in place for the Great Cooking of the Christmas Meal, and copies have been distributed on a need-to-know basis, I feel more relaxed. Provided the cooker doesn't implode, or explode, with or without bang, we should be sitting down to eat at 1pm.




Every year, something strange seems to happen to the way that time flows; suddenly, in the last few days before Christmas, time speeds up, and the hours are filled with a relentless rush to buy and make and store and search and tidy and clear and clean until there is no joy left, just hurry, hurry, hurry.

And then, every year, there comes a moment when it is ok. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. Again. Once more. We will reach the journey's end, there will be somewhere to stay, and everything will be just fine.

So, Happy Christmas, everybody.