With just over two weeks left before Christmas, I imagine that your preparations are now in full swing. One of the things that makes each individual celebration unique, is the fact that we will all have our own family traditions to uphold.

We can only hope and pray that we will be able to proceed with a more ‘normal’ Christmas in 2021 and continue with those details that we hold dear.

For some, there will, perhaps, be a limit on how much we are allowed to spend on a present or the number we are allowed to give. For others, presents may have to be opened at a particular time or in a specific order.

But I hope that all of us, like those Kings who visited the manger at Bethlehem, will have an opportunity to give to and receive from others.

Parson Woodford, writing in his famous diary on Christmas Day 1777 recalled some details of the day itself,

“Being Christmas Day, the following poor people dined at my house: old Richard Bates, old Richard Buck, Thomas Carr, old Thomas Dicker, old Tom Cushion, Robin Buck and my clerk, Jos Smith. I had for dinner a fine sirloin of beef roasted and plum puddings for them.”

Parson Woodford was a generous man. In an age when there was very little by way of Social Services or even organised giving to charitable organisations, it was deemed to be one of the Christian duties of the clergy to provide for those in need. It remains the case today - very few of us, living in a parsonage or vicarage, will not have been visited from time to time by those who have nowhere else to go or no-one else to whom they can turn.

I hope that one of the many things that all our Christmas plans will have in common, is our willingness to be generous towards others.

This may exhibit itself in our gifts to others, or our giving to a Christmas charity, or even perhaps, like parson Woodford, sharing our Christmas meal with someone who otherwise may go without or who might be alone.

Those first Kings or Wise Men were generous and Jesus and his family benefited from the kindness of strangers who offered them room in a stable.

May we learn from their examples.

My best wishes for Christmas.

Martin Beaumont