The time to send and receive Christmas cards has come round again – time for our annual shock at the cost of a coloured card, and disbelief at what the Post Office intends to charge us to deliver them.

It seems there are three kinds of people when it comes to Christmas cards: the total abstainers, the total givers and the selective givers.

Abstainers write ‘Happy Christmas everyone’ on Facebook, and consider the job well done. Total givers spend a fortune on cards and stamps and send them to everyone they know. Selective givers try to cut corners, but then cannot remember who sent who what, and as the cards pour through their door, spend time worrying…

However you do it, it is good to stay in yearly touch with your widest circle of friends and family. Proverbs points out that: ‘Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.’ Prov 25:25. Your loved ones will enjoy hearing from you!

Extracted from Parish Pump

One person you are bound to run into this Christmas season is Father Christmas. These days he seems to frequent shopping malls and garden centres. If he looks tired, just remember that he has been around a long time and gone through a lot of transformations.

Father Christmas wasn’t always the red-suited, white bearded star of the retail trade that he is today. He began life as Nicholas, born way back about AD260 in Patara, an important port on the southern coast of what is now Turkey. When his parents died and left him a fortune, Nicholas gave it away to the poor. He became a bishop of the nearby city of Myra, where he almost certainly suffered persecution and imprisonment at the hand of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

Nicholas was a serious theologian: he was a participant at the First Council of Nicaea, which formulated the Creed which we still say today. He even, reportedly, slapped another bishop in a squabble over the exact nature of the Trinity.

Nicholas died in Myra about AD343, but the stories of his generosity and kindness were just beginning. One enduring tale tells of the three girls whom he rescued from certain prostitution by giving them gold for their dowries. When the father confronted him to thank him, Nicholas said he should thank God alone. In the UK, Nicholas became the basis for Father Christmas, who emerged in Victorian times as a jolly-faced bearded character. Meanwhile, Dutch and German settlers had taken him to America with them as Sinter Klaas and Sankt Nicklas.

It was in America that Nicholas received his final two great breaks into real stardom. The first was when the Rev Clement C Moore, a New York Episcopal minister, turned from his life-work of writing a Hebrew/English lexicon, to write a fun poem for his children one Christmas. His ‘The Visit of St Nicholas’ is now universally known by its first line: ‘T’was the Night Before Christmas’.

From Clement Moore we discovered that St Nicholas is round and pink-cheeked and white-bearded, and that he travels at night with sleigh, reindeer and a sack of toys on his back. It was Clement Moore who also revealed that St Nicholas enters houses down chimneys and fills children’s stockings with toys and sweets.

So how did we find out that Father Christmas wears red? That was the US Coca-Cola advertising campaign of 1931, who finally released the latest, up-to date pictures of Father Christmas: wearing a bright red, fur-trimmed coat and a large belt. These days, it is good that Father Christmas uses reindeer and doesn’t have to pay for petrol. In order to get round all the children in the world on Christmas Eve, he will have to travel 221 million miles at an average speed of 1279 miles a second, 6,395 times the speed of sound. For all those of us who are already exhausted just rushing around getting ready for Christmas, 

You may be young or old, working endless hours, or retired. But there is one exercise you can still undertake almost anywhere, for however long or short a time: walking. According to health specialists, the simple act of walking “ticks so many boxes: improving our brain, mental and musculoskeletal fitness, as well as our physical fitness.”

Here are five reasons why:

Walking raises your heart rate and makes you breathe faster. It gives you the benefit of a moderate aerobic workout – without the stress on your joints. As for your blood sugar levels, consider this: after a meal your blood sugar level rises and your pancreas releases insulin to bring it down. But even a five-minute walk can help by blunting the spike in blood sugar. Try and keep your pace brisk – aim for 100 to 130 steps a minute.

Walking improves your bone density. Walking briskly engages the muscles along the back side of your body – the glutes, hamstrings and calves. They in turn put a bit of pull on your bones, which stimulates your bones to produce osteoblasts, which improves your bone density and reduces your risk of osteoporosis.

Walking improves your mood. It stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system (nerves that relax the body during stress) and stimulates your amygdala (that part of you which controls your emotions). And if you can walk near water (rivers, coast, in the rain) you get exposed to negative ions in the air. These electrically charged molecules are excellent for your mental health.

Walking helps your brain. You will sleep better, and your brain will be in better shape for memory and cognition. Walking also stimulates creative thinking – studies have found walking is a great time for problem-solving.

Walking helps your body shape. An instant way to look younger is to stand tall. So walk with your head up, shoulders back, and lengthen your back, to stand up straighter. And with firmer muscles, your overall body shape will improve, which in turn will boost your confidence!

Extracted from Parish Pump

Here is a picture of Eileen Law wearing her official Olympic GB Rowing Team Supporters’ T shirt.

Her granddaughter, Rowan McKellar, was in the GB Rowing Eights and she and her team won bronze medals in Paris. Well done!

Sixty years ago, on 4th September 1964, the Forth Road Bridge opened in Scotland. It links Edinburgh to Fife across the Firth of Forth. (A second bridge, the Queensferry Crossing, opened in 2017 and largely replaced it.) The crossing of the Firth of Forth has a long history. In the 11th century Margaret, queen consort of King Malcolm III, founded a ferry service there to transport pilgrims from Edinburgh to Dunfermline Abbey and St Andrews. It continued for over 800 years, although there were suggestions as early as the 1740s for a road crossing. The Forth Road Bridge has a main span of 1100 yards between the two towers and was the fourth longest longspan suspension bridge in the world when it opened. In total, the structure is over one and a half miles long. It is now inaccessible to vehicles other than buses and taxis, but it is open to pedestrians and cyclists – and to the first driverless bus service to carry passengers in the UK. Railway crossings are made by the original Forth Bridge, opened in 1890. There were worries in the early years of the 21st century about the number of vehicles using the Forth Road Bridge – about twice as many as had been planned – and the consequent wear and tear on a feature whose lifespan had originally been estimated at 120 years. In December 2010 heavy snow and several accidents brought the first closure. Five years later structural problems meant it would have to close to normal road traffic. The new 1.7-mile Queensferry Bridge – a spectacular motorway with no pedestrian access – was opened in August 2017. It carries about 80,000 vehicles a day. Its formal opening by Queen Elizabeth II occurred 53 years to the day after she had opened the Forth Road Bridge.