If you don't believe in miracles watch this:
and a link to him being interviewed afterwards http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14944036 yes, he's alive. A miracle.
And here's a reason why it's a miracle your luggage ever arrives anywhere.
Or perhaps that you arrive at all
Ready to book your holidays?!
Happy Christmas!
Tim Minchin's song has been cut from the ITV Jonathon Ross Christmas Eve show, so typical of the current trend to try to remove Christianity from anything for fear of offending people. It doesn't matter how hard anyone tries you cannot separate Christmas and Christ.
It is so not offensive, it simply brings Jesus into a modern understanding. Maybe people not normally likely to be touched by Jesus might actually spend a moment to think about him.
So praise be to Jesus.
If you want to hear Tim Mintchin's own thoughts on it, his blog is here.
Have a peaceful and blessed Christmas all.
We weren't around last year which has given us the enthusiasm to go for it in lights this year.
But we still have plenty of candles about too.
This week's Gallery is Christmas of Yesteryear
I slave my fingers to the bone on youtube in the quest for your entertainment. Yes, ok, I sit down to write a post and get distracted...ohhh shiny things, look! Anyhoo, here's 2 of the Season's best.
If the Christmas Can Can isn't your bag, skip over it to the 12 days of Christmas (actually they give up at 8) if only to hear 'beer'. It tickled me.
I used to love CBeebies bedtime hour, they took the hard work out of going up the wooden hill to a bath, a snuggle in a fresh towel, stories and then multiple hours of me yelling "will you just go to sleep".
Even as she grew and baths turned to showers, snuggles turned into side by side talks before she read for a bit there was still time to squeeze in a few hours of "you've been to the toilet enough times already, will you just stay in bed and go to sleep".
Of a chill winter's evening I like to decamp to bathroom. Up to my eyeballs in hot suds and good book. By the time TeenAngel can be nagged into the nightly shower, which she insists she can't sleep without, I just can't be bothered. I recall I sometimes used to slip in a late bone warming bath about 10:30pm when the house was finally quiet. These days, when I know she's still awake it just doesn't seem the same.
I suspect we are now on a ladder to evening doomsville, only a stones throw away from 'I need to be in bed before her' which is simply a step away from 'I can't wait up for her any longer'.
Dear Santa, please can I have one of these for Christmas. I used to think it was hard work, I used to think parenting young children was the hardest job on earth. BWAHAHAHAHA. Please feel free to do a straight swap. Yours sincerely Mrs "can I go to bed now?"
I don't relate to the Christmas songs. Yes I love them, but I just don't relate.
I've never seen my mother kissing Santa Claus nor have I ever been given the opportunity to do so myself. Is this normal? It pops up in a number of songs. Do dads actually dress up as Santa and then couples get all romantic about it? This is not my life.
I have never rocked around a Christmas tree, not even a wobble that I can recall and pumpkin pie is also not going to happen unless I bought one on Halloween and froze it. You can safely guess I didn't.
"It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid" You've clearly not met my family.
"All I want for Christmas is...." duuurrr, a phone upgrade, obviously.
"I wish it could be Christmas everyday" as much as I love a bit of festivity I try to 'do it' every 2 years. This generally means going away biannually. We have caught long haul flights on Christmas day in order to avoid it on either side of the globe. Biannually yes, everyday nope.
"December will be magic again" maaaaaybe, just possibly, but "dropping down in my parachute" it won't be. Does anyone know WTF that one is about?
Despite having never been to New York I can completely relate to "Happy Christmas your arse, pray God it's our last"*
But this one is my current favourite, enjoy:
*well for 2 years anyhow
Daughter came out of school in tears. Not sobs, just the gentle stream of tears at the end of a long hard day.
Gentle questions revealed not much wrong, but not much right: difficult lessons, a bad test result and a long day.
We came home to a warm house, a drink, a biscuit and a bit of quiet time; dinner and then a bit of cooking together.
We sent a Christmas Box through Operation Christmas Child this Christmas through COG's Guide Unit. For her it was fun to go through the process of thinking about what someone would like to receive, shopping for it on a budget, wrapping the box. It is a good lesson in humility for a teenager that has everything she wants.
But in fairness, I found the process a bit time consuming and not top of my list of things to do. Mainly because I actually had to go to the shops and I don't do shops - I do on-line shopping.
So 'HELLO to ShoeBoxWorld' You can do it online, it's easy and it's fun. For about £11 that's pretty much a JD for me.
This is why it's worthwhile:
For many of the children that receive the gift it’s the first Christmas present they’ve ever received.
Concentrate this is the science bit:
Samaritan’s Purse UK is a humanitarian relief and development organisation working in 18 countries across Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
One of their major projects is Operation Christmas Child, the UK’s leading shoebox appeal, where every Christmas they send on average 1.6 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in need in the developing world. http://www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk/
For many of the children that receive the gift it’s the first Christmas present they’ve ever received.
The official deadline to submit an Operation Christmas Child shoebox has closed, however people are still able to create a shoebox online, using the fun, interactive site Shoebox World.
A shoebox can be created from as little as £11, and it will go to a child in the Lofa County, Liberia. The Lofa County is a region of Liberia where a significant proportion of child soldiers in the Liberian Civil War were recruited, so the gifts will have a massive impact on the morale of the community.
I've spent today helping at my Church with the local primary school's Christmas concerts. Getting up to school early, walking groups down to church and back (Thrice). Dressing Marys, Josephs, shepherds and Kings. (Thrice). Juice, biscuits, toilet trips! (Thrice). Hymn sheets, opening the door, closing the door, 'yes you can leave your buggy by the font's (Thrice).
Every time I do it I am left with a massive sense of "How damned lucky am I that they let me into their world for a while".
I listened to and sang this carol 6 times today, I promise I only got misty eyed in 5 of them! and I wasn't alone.
This is not our children or church but it is packed with the same feeling
Sometimes people ask me why I use my limited holiday from work to help out with a school I have no links to now, with children I don't know. I wish you could feel how wonderful I do today. Then everybody would know.
I was totally entertained when about 100 scouts got onto our previously quiet train. They shouted, laughed, chanted and sang. There were some very wee girls amongst the bigger boys who seemed far too young to be going on such a great adventure. To be quite honest I wanted to go where they were going, they were about to have a ball.
Except in German speaking countries where they always have major issues with our name differences. Top tip if you are abducting a child do not try to take them through Germany or Switzerland.
Until Johnny Foreigner finally manages to battle his way through border control. 13 years of permanent residency and they still won't let him in without 100 questions. In Australia we are allowed through the Australian channel as a family. Only in the EU do we have issues with border control. Ironic really.
To say things aren't going remarkably well in Kelloggsville would be an understatement and today was no exception. The order of priorities of some of my nearest and dearest never fails to amaze me and yet again I was left struggling alone to deal with some of the more crappy aspects of life.
Yesterday was MRI scan number 2 which revealed that my prolapse has a prolapse making it now a double sized leakage and does at least explain the number of times I have recently said "I'm sure I wasn't in this much pain at the beginning."
The problem with soldiering on of course is that in the end people forget that there is a problem at all and slowly they expect you to be able to change beds, get the Christmas decorations out of the attic, put the ironing board up etc. When you look fine, people look at you like you are being lazy. Not being able to carry my own case recently was a case in point and poor COG got a short straw because of it too.
Anyhoo...today's soldier on was a solo trip to the hospital for a caudal epidural. (A lovely Uncle offered to do a very long round trip drive just to pick me up but it seemed an excessive ask.) I used the local taxi firm to get me to the hospital, they are very helpful and I explained I didn't know when I would need to come home. She said she would be there if she could whenever I needed her.
But when the hospital booked me in they were very unhappy about me being alone "don't you even have a neighbour you can call?" they said. Bring on the tears! I suddenly felt very let down and alone. But also thinking about single people, people with familes a long distance away or no one...this managing without support game is hard.
Soooo where does the Big Society come into these she's just moanings? Ahhh well, firstly you see, the consultant popped his head round the curtain and said "The nurse said you don't have a pick up, if it's still too bad for a taxi later I'll take you home, you live in the next village to me" : what a sweetie!
But wait there's more....do you remember my local taxi firm? As I said to the hospital "they aren't just any old firm they are the M&S of taxis". She came up trumps, she squeezed me in between school runs, she helped me in and out, drove carefully around the bumps, carried my bag and saw me through the door. I knew they would be there for me. That's what part of being in a community is about, we know each other and take a little extra care.
It's not hard to make a big difference, just an extra inch from you can give someone miles and miles.
Go on give an inch, you know it'll make you feel good. Ahhhh go on, go on go on, go on
Speaking of Mrs Doyle, this is what really cheered me up tonight
You've got to laugh..haven't you?! But I swear if anyone buys me anything remotely running related at Christmas I will actually implode with misery.
The Gallery this week is 'My Awesome Photo'
We've been to a lot of awesome places together as a family and seen many beautiful things, I have photos coming out of my ears of beautiful seas, sunsets and vistas and awesome they are too but whilst a photo like that is beautiful for the eye, awesomeness (that's not a word is it) comes from the heart.
Or 'She was so happy at this moment in time it actually brings tears of joy to my eyes just looking at it.'
Or maybe just a time when I was so very happy that I can't imagine feeling that good ever again.
I often struggle with Christmas and how plastic it is. I have a huge tug of conscious about how much I enjoy Santa and gift wrapping and mince pies and I know it's not what is in my heart, what gives me the greatest joy of all. My DustBunny friend wrapped it up quite succinctly:
"The fake stuff makes me feel joy during the holiday season. The REAL stuff, though...Jesus.... helps me sustain joy year round."
So I feel happy knowing it's ok that I like dancing to 'Rocking Around the Christmas Tree' in Lewis' and playing with the rocking Santas. Actually it's ok by me, HWMBO and COG tend to walk away fairly swiftly.
I also know it's ok to be hoping that there is an upgrade happening on the 25th in digital terms. Are you reading this oh spouse of mine?! It's ok that we enjoy the modern world, because whilst times move on, the story stays the same.
I hope you enjoy this season of advent.
Anyhoo, I also found this clock on a t'internet safari. This clearly shows the difference between me and HWMBO. I am 1-4, he is 10-12 ! I fail to see the funny side of 10-12. 
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