It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

At midnight on Halloween it seems that all the shops are turning their displays to Christmas ones.

If, like me, you are a mum then if you haven’t already been putting things away for Christmas you start now and the shops seem to have a set of new and expensive shiny things to buy.

Those must-have purple reindeer and, of course, the chocolate coins nobody eats until March – or ever.

As a vicar I am already planning the Christmas services and sorting rotas and soon the practice of carols and Christmas songs will begin.

In the busyness of the coming preparation it’s hard sometimes to remind ourselves why we do all this.

I love Christmas and the way the mood lifts in people.

I enjoy the careful buying of gifts for people and hope that they will make them smile.

My favourite moment of Christmas is midnight Mass when we put the model of baby Jesus in the crib for the first time and for me that is when I feel the incredible gift that God gave us that Christmas a long time ago.

Where he came down to share in our humanity and show us who we should be. Loving and kind, generous and merciful.

If all of us lived lives with these four things whatever our beliefs as part of our humanity the world would be a place of peace and peace starts with each one of us.