Stars

They were Roman soldiers, angels, sheep, shepherds, and lots of other things as well as stars, but all the children in our Nativity Play this morning were stars. After yesterday's rehearsal I was on my knees with exhaustion and prayer. I don't mean devout and contemplative prayer, I mean 'please God do something aout this mess' prayer.

This morning they rose to the occasion magnificently. LYS pitched in and made sure all props were in the right hands at the right moment. Parents turned up with brilliant headbands and masks. The children were fantastic. You starry starry stars.

Now, I believe that a real celebratory occasion should be greeted with with party poppers, streamers and bubbles. When we got to the last verse of 'Hark the Herald', the children got to do all of that. I took some of them to an upper room where they could shower party poppers and streamers on to the congregation. A great start to Jesus's birthday celebrations.

My favourite pair of brothers (apart from my own LOS and LYS, of course) had a wonderful time, staying up there until the grown-ups were having coffee and several armfuls of streamers landed on my head. When they'd used up the party poppers and thrown the empties out as well, they were still up there, so I went up and locked the windows, because, what do you throw out when there's nothing else left? Your brother?

And this evening Daughter and Daughter's Chap arrived for Christmas. Hamilton Bear got very excited, especially when they asked him to be a page bear at their wedding.

I am surrounded by stars. Some of them are even in the sky.