Advent, 2011

Dear Trinity Friends,

The Grinch hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be his head wasn’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
May have been that his heart was two sizes too small.

What would Christmas be without Dr. Seuss' well-loved favourite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Don't we love that grumpy, greedy, grouchy, green Grinch who is so totally engrossed in his raving, riotous rant about the extreme excesses of the Whoville Christmas!

Who among us does not, at some point in the Christmas season, succumb to a just little Grinchitis? “It's too much,” we cry. “Too much shopping and spending. Too much partying and feasting. Too much, altogether too much. I'm so tired, I could sleep until it is over!”

And often it is completely too much. So much that we miss the "real‟ Christmas, the hidden Christmas, which is buried beneath the wrapping paper, tinsel and bows. The Hidden Christmas is our Advent Theme this year and together we will seek it. Perhaps as we search we will be better able to fight our attacks of Grinchitis.

“It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
And what happened then? Well…in Whoville they say,
That the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day!

Perhaps we too will discover that we have been looking in the wrong places and that our hearts have been a little too small. Perhaps as we search for The Hidden Christmas, we will discover that Christmas means "a little bit more‟.... in fact, a whole lot MORE because the most important message of Christmas is that God is with us... good news to make even the biggest Grinch's heart grow bigger and warmer.

Please begin your Advent preparation by joining us for our Hanging of the Greens service and Advent Communion, on Sunday, November 27. Let the search for the Hidden Christmas begin!
Blessings,

Cheryl Kirk and Doreen Hewitson