Advent 2017: 16 December

Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours 

Just a friendly wave each morning, helps to make a better day 

Neighbours, need to get to know each other 

Next door is only a footstep away 

From the Australian TV show "Neighbours" 

(Tony Hatch / Jackie Trent)

Sometimes plans go awry and I am continually learning to be flexibly organised! Yet again this advent has thrown curve balls at me resulting in changes; I'm sure you're actually relieved not to have to read daily updates of the Dennis advent!! Anyway, I thought I'd share with you what we have got up to this weekend.

For a few years now I have like the idea of inviting neighbours round for Christmas drinks and nibbles, but it's not been possible for various reasons. This year we planned and managed to make it happen. Do you know your neighbours? We moved into a road of 36 houses last January and it's been slow getting to know people. There are some people who do the school run at the same time and we say hello and wave; or there are the neighbours who take in parcels for us (and vice versa) and we say hello and thank you; and then there are those that we just don't see. How did we shift into such an isolated existence? It wasn't long ago that roads like ours would have been a real community.

We decided to do something about this and posted Christmas cards to nine of our closest neighbours, as well as inviting them round to ours for a Christmas Open House. Out of the nine only two families were able to make it, but that is two more that we knew before! It was lovely to spend time with them and put names to faces. But the thing that blessed me most about those who weren't able to come were the lovely replies we had; we now have names and the embryonic form of a neighbourly relationship. Maybe, step-by-step, we can rebuild a sense of community in this street, as well as sharing our faith with people.

In other news we forgot to do our From Christmas to Creation story due to the busyness of the day, and we opened our Wrapped Books from 14 and 15 December but ended up reading something completely different! My Advent Readings this week have been more about Mary, but more about that tomorrow when I will summarise the week!