For once I agree with the Archbishop!!

I've changed my attitude to Christmas this year completely. Maybe it's because I'm skint, maybe it's because I've had a change of heart about it all. Something happened this year that made me change the way I feel about things in general. I'm not materialistic as such. I like nice things but we've never had money to throw around on expensive kit. In the past we have spent a fortune on each other but then just fills our houses with more tech and chargers.
This year we have bought ourselves, for Christmas and our birthdays, a weekend away to a log cabin and I cannot wait to just chill out with the family for 3 days.
It's been a manic year really. Lots of fundraising and no holiday together, so this weekend will be just for us on a mini holiday. Money and time have been tight so we never managed much time away this year at all.
One thing I have realised is that the gifts of charity and compassion go much further than jewellery, or something that won't last more than a week. Charity and compassion cost nothing but a little effort.

Last night the unit was busy with some very poorly patients, as you would expect, but these patients have been really really sick. Sad cases, young patients critically ill. Nervous families unsure what they should be doing on Christmas eve whilst their loved one is so sick
and hanging on to life by a thread at the mercy of medical care. Thankfully they made it through the night but at the last minute a young lady was bought in having given birth prematurely to her baby at 32 weeks because of a treatable flu. It breaks my heart. I actually watched midnight mass last night and prayed for a young mans life and I sit at home in comfort with my family overindulging, thinking about these people.

I felt awful that my child would wake up without me there but in perspective the sick folk and my colleagues were in more need than my overindulged daughter!! I hope she can grow up with empathy and compassion and realise that Christmas is the perfect opportunity to give a little more of ourselves and think a little less about ourselves for once.
Merry Christmas x x