The beginning of Advent came at the end of November and so, December was dominated by thoughts of Christmas.
I started, as usual, by trying to focus my thoughts daily: this year, with Lection 365’s daily readings, supplemented by a couple of other emails which popped into my inbox with different ‘focus’ words. Still, I found my thoughts somewhat scattered as I focused not only on the birth of Christ, but on the impending birth of our first grandson.
We were glued to WhatsApp throughout the day of December 17th, once we knew that Adele and Jonny had gone to the hospital, alternating with long text messages between Lisa and I, she nearby while I was far distant. Both of us wondering, waiting, reassuring each other that all would be well. #thankGodfortheinternet
After a gruelling labour, Finn Oscar John Pollard was safely delivered by Caesarean section – a healthy 4.1kg – 9 lb, in old money. Already, after a few days, he looked more like a two month old baby and, by the time he was one week old, had been ‘out’ to dinner and gone on a lengthy visit to our friends Byron and Lisa, who live a 40-minute drive away from home. Wonderful photos of Other People holding him... our turn will come later.
But we are so, so grateful and rejoice that he has had such a wonderful welcome. Not least, by his other grandparents whose journey we prayed for as they made their way south from Doncaster, eventually arriving 36 hours after leaving home. (We, too, have booked to go and visit him in a few months’ time, but going by a more direct route.)
The rest of the month was dominated by internet and computer problems: the first, caused by a visiting baby unwittingly yanking on a cable which in turn pulled wires out of a connection box, which in turn caused intermittent and hard-to-identify problems, which led to a request for an internet upgrade and then an engineer’s visit and then... many, many hours trying to sort out various hacking issues. #joysofcomputers #neverasimplesolution
Otherwise, my commitments at school eased up and I had plenty of time to enjoy writing Christmas cards and emails. I completed a lot of festive baking, including inventing a wonderful recipe for crystallized orange peel sugar cookies, baking 150 tiny gingerbread ‘stables’ for the Christmas programme at church and perfecting my Swedish pepparkakor recipe to be suitable for vegan friends.
My ‘Jesse tree’ became more of a decorated ‘hearts’ tree but I did open up windows on our vintage Advent calendars: one, in particular, I love,because the scenes behind the windows reflect the scenes in the whole Advent calendar. It reminds me of Jostein Gaarder’s The Christmas Mysteries, where a little girl journeys from Norway to Bethlehem, gathering characters from the Christmas story as she does while simultaneously travelling back in time to the birth of Christ. A lovely and very clever story, compelling to read.
We hosted a few small gatherings for friends, preferring to keep groups small even though there was more preparation involved. First our home group, as we shared our own Christmas and Advent traditions: from reading the same beloved story each year to reminiscing about parents and sharing a Christmas poem by John Betjeman, to tales of stringing popcorn and cranberries to decorate a tree in the American tradition, to taking a dip in the sea on Christmas morning... With other friends, we gathered on December 22nd to celebrate La Longue Veille, the longest night, an old Guernsey tradition where neighbours and friends gathered just before Christmas Eve to drink mulled wine, tell stories and to work on handicrafts to sell at the traditional Christmas Eve market.
And many, many of the writers I read, including the lovely Ann Voskamp and her wise words, wrote of sorrow and loneliness and heartbreak all amplified by the expectations of the season.
Of course, walking and cycling as often as weather allows was a must, where we saw raptors of some kind on every occasion. One walk in particular, through the fields by the observation post towards Pleinmont, yielded several sightings of a buzzard, a sparrowhawk and a kestrel; another cycle ride gave us a close up view of a kestrel hovering before it dived and caught a vole just a few metres away from us.
Sea swimming, on the other hand, didn’t happen quite so often!!
Finally: a note on Lost Things. The first was a piece of protective tubing which came off the battery case on my bike. It was not a huge difficulty, but nevertheless an annoyance and inconvenience to replace. I tried to retrace my route, keeping an eye out, with a ‘I know it’s not really important, but it would be nice if I found it...’ prayer to God. And I DID! Something caught my eye at the entrance to a neighbour’s driveway... and there it was.
More seriously, we set off for town on Christmas Eve when I noticed that the diamond on my engagement ring had fallen out. After making sure that it had not come out in the car, on my return home I shone a light under the hall trunk, in the vain hope that it had fallen out while I had been pulling something out of my bag. And... THERE IT WAS! Just a couple of minutes after returning home. I had prayed the same prayer, after giving myself a sternly philosophical talking-to along the lines of ‘what is done, is done’, never expecting that I would find such a tiny object. Quite, quite miraculous. So grateful.
Living on this beautiful island, the sea with its continually-changing moods and vistas always a delight and a consolation, even in the worst weather – so grateful.
Hearing from so many wonderful, albeit mostly distant, friends over the Christmas season – so grateful.
Ending the month with more visits with nearby friends – so grateful.
Reflecting on so many answered prayers, especially for Finnley, Jonny and Adele – so grateful.
Thinking of Cat and Andy and our precious granddaughters in New Zealand: charming caring Cara and fearless adventurous Rosie – so grateful.
A long-lasting, happy, interesting and exciting marriage – so grateful.
So, so grateful.
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