God with us

Felt I should post some kind of reflection on this Advent with the big day tomorrow. Will try and do some review of some kind of this year in the next week leading up to 2008, but though it would be good to write something to mark Christmas itself.

For me, this Christmas has been a strange one – part of the transition involved in growing up and moving out I guess. Christmas has always been about family for me – time spent with my little brother and sister, and Mum and Dad. But looking back in this advent season and thinking about the things that have really hit me, it's also been much more about time spent with friends than in previous years. Maybe this Christmas, God has been with us - in the time just spent being together.

Back in Newport, the run up to Christmas was about late night viewings of Home Alone 2, Love Actually, and other Christmas classics I can't really remember at the House that Love Built with some of the guys from the Lab – the Christmas movie fest took off in a chaotic kind of way. Late night (there might be a theme here ;-) painting sessions at St Paul's to get our Christmas boards ready to go up outside – as well as late night trips to Tesco's looking for sheets. The unforgettable Christian Union Christmas party with a huge game of WarioWare, and the Space Hopper relay – but possibly more about the roadtrip afterwards to campus and back.

And in Aberystwyth, about a drink with old friends to catch up – and converse with eternal significance.

I thought that I might have lost that childhood warm feeling of being Christmassy – but looking back maybe it's just been displaced a little.