ALTERNATIVITY

Do you rush around before Christmas? I feel quite guilty sometimes because I don't! Worse this year as it seems I am failing my country if I don't spend lots of money! I am sure I would get more frantic if I had a family. I do usually intend to write to people but the more I feel like hibernating, the less I act until that last minute card sending spree.
The seasonal decorations cards and sales which seem to start earlier each year fill me with a kind of horror. -and as for those Christmas decoration shops that are permanently open all the year round --
I was interested to be invited to an Alternativity Retreat this week at the Bield at Blackruthven . It is intended for women who need some space and think about alternative ways of preparing Christmas. Spending less money, eating more simply, making one's own decorations and presents- that sort of thing. Some of us do send charity gifts through Tearfund or World Vision.
This alternative approach to doing Christmas is spreading. Bishop Stephen Cottrell has just published a book about it. Do Nothing: Christmas is Coming 'offers a conversation between the imagined voice of the sort of frazzled and fragmented person that many of us become at Christmas, and my own reflections and suggestions on how to make sense of this and start sorting things out,” writes Bishop Stephen in his introduction.'
I think I am going to take Advent more seriously this Christmas -and WAIT