Christmas in Blaby

Christmas in Blaby began with the Blaby Lights Switch On which this year was a virtual event which was broadcast live on Facebook at 7pm on Friday 27th November. Although led by Blaby Parish Council, our Pastor Julie was asked to speak at the event to give a religious message.

During December our collaboration with the council lead to the formation of Blaby Elves and we asked for donations of toys to put into parcels for families suffering at this time. We were given so many toys that not all could be used and these were sent to the Toys on the Table appeal to help even more families.

We also had some Governement money that was used to provide food and household goods parcels and these were topped up with donations of special Christmas food like mince pies and chocolates.

42 gift boxes were made up and distributed by the council and ourselves to individuals, couples and families in Blaby and Glen Parva. The recipients were very grateful - it made a real difference to how some of them celebrated Christmas.

Can I thank all those who gave items or money to the appeal.

Our Christmas services were somewhat different to usual as we wrer unable to share drama and music performances but the church was still beautifully decorated forin time for the first Sunday in Advent and we lit a new Advent candle each Sunday until by Christmas Day the centre candle was lit to join the other four candles.

Julie used a series of meditations based on 'Then and Now' to tell the Chritmas story over the weeks of Advent.

We held two Christingle services on 20th December to ensure that all who wanted to attend could do so. After the relling of the Christmas story we each took a bag which contained all the elements if the Christingle to build it ourselves. We could not have candles being lit by people moving around so we had glowstick torches instead - the effect was brilliant in the afternoon service when the lights wer switched off as it was already dark outside.

My thanks to those who joined us over Christmas and to those who took part in the services.