Saturday 17 December 2016

Brussels at Christmas!!!

Do you like Brussel Sprouts with your Christmas dinner?!

I’m not a fan!

Sarah Kennedy, when she presented her early morning breakfast show on Radio 2, used to talk about putting on the sprouts mid-October ready for Christmas Day!

Perhaps they will always be part of Christmas Dinner for some – I see there are 28 recipes for what to do with them on the BBC Food website!

The Good News – for me at least – is that there was a summer invasion of Diamondbacks this year, otherwise known as Cabbage moths – so in Lincolnshire, which supplies 2/3rds of all Britain’s sprouts, crops are down by 60% - hooray!!!!

For the second year running I’ve bought some chocolate sprouts from M&S!  I know it’s cheating – but it’s the best way to eat them – chocolate balls dressed in green!!  Sugar coated!

We sometimes do that with Christmas – we sugar coat it and try to make it nice – perhaps too nice.

The actual Christmas story is far from sugar coated.

Mary and Joseph’s was a tough engagement full of vicious rumours.

It was a tortuous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Birth in a stable couldn’t be on anyone’s wish list.

And once born, not everyone, especially Herod, welcomed the arrival of Jesus.

The Christmas story is anything but sugar coated.  It has struggle and confusion alongside joy and love.

Yet God comes in the struggle.

God comes in the confusion.

Just as much as he comes in the joy and the love.

Perhaps that’s one of the deepest meanings of Christmas – God touches our lives and lives alongside us in both good times and bad. 


That’s Immanuel – God with us

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