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The traditional Nativity scene on our Christmas cards has Mary with the Holy Babe. Around her are the shepherds and Magi. We may also see stable animals, angels and a star! While Joseph is often included, his presence seems to be of minor importance. After all, we praise God for Jesus with our familiar Christmas...

It was: 400 years ago, on 21st December 1620 that the first landing party from the British ship Mayflower arrived at what would become Plymouth Colony (now Plymouth Massachusetts). They began building houses there two days later. 300 years ago, on 31st December 1720 that Charles Edward Stuart, commonly known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ was...

Our pretty Christmas cards do not do it justice – the stable that Jesus was born in would have been smelly, dirty, and full of mess.   So why did God not provide something better for His beloved Son?   Why let Joseph and Mary scrounge around until they ended up in a smelly stable? Perhaps because...

Joseph and his Amazing Journey Struggling for relinquishment.  (Part Two) A Quiz on 2020 Answers for Quiz on 2020 12 ways to avoid stress this Christmas How many Christmas carols do you really know? The one benefit of a Covid Christmas? How to impress the cat this Christmas Stark sign of the times Over two...

By John Kiddie, CHP (80p single copy; pack of 10, £7; pack of 50, £30) Churches all over the country will be marking Advent and Christmas in both new and familiar ways this year. ‘Comfort and Joy’, the Church of England’s 2020 Christmas campaign, will help enrich your Christmas It features daily reflections for the...

This year, 2020, is a special year for Beethoven: it marks the 250th anniversary of his birth on 16th December 1770. And so it was very fitting that back in August, at the first Live Prom this year in the Royal Albert Hall, the BBC Symphony Orchestra played his 3rd symphony, the Eroica. Beethoven composed...

The so-called Arab Spring started 10 years ago, in December 2010, when Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest at police seizing his vegetable stand over failure to obtain a permit. What was originally Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution became a tsunami of demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, foreign interventions and civil wars throughout...

Did you know that it is a family in Wiltshire, the Parkers, who claim to own the world’s oldest artificial Christmas tree?  It was bought in 1886, and is still put up every year.

Jesus’ welcoming committee included Eastern scholars who learned about His birth through their study of astrology. I can’t help thinking that the arrival of these people at Bethlehem is a link between a very early form of science (albeit mixed in with their own form of religion) and Christian faith. What better way to discover...

Every year it happens. I hear Christians lamenting how ‘Christmas comes earlier every year.’ Since this September (or before!) supermarkets, shops and garden centres have been selling Christmas jumpers, socks and pyjamas and all kinds of other seasonal merchandise. Should we be annoyed or exasperated? Should we have gone around reminding people that it’s much...

By Tom Parsons, 10Publishing, £3.99 You will conceive and give birth to a son … And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by … You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Luke’s opening chapters ring with the familiar well-loved lines that herald the warm solemnity of...

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world… And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David.  (Luke 2 1-4) What a year we have had!...