Advent

Advent calendars (counting the 24 days from 1st December to Christmas day) don't really have much to do with Advent.

Advent is 'coming' and much like Lent before Easter, Advent is the period in the Church leading up towards Christmas.

As children it was one of our favourite church periods... less solemn than Lent, but with it's own set of traditions and services.

Hugely popular was the Christingle service; my brother, cousins and I would each make a Christingle; an orange with a red ribbon tied around the middle, a candle stuck in the middle and cocktail sticks with dried fruit stuck around the candle, four of them.

My brother, my cousins and me (I'm 2nd right)

The orange represents the world, the red ribbon the blood of Christ, the sticks (and the fruit) the four seasons and the fruit of the earth and the candle Christ as light of the world.  We loved taking them down to church and lining them up on the table. 

In the church there was always an advent wreath; some evergreens wound into a wreath with four candles to be lit every Sunday in advent; with a fifth final candle lit at midnight mass on Christmas day.

We had our own version at home - Angel Chimes. They were fantastic; little golden angels whose 'windmill' was powered by heat from candle flames; they would fly around hitting little chimes. The first Sunday in Advent they'd be quite soft and calming; by Christmas with all candles lit (and usually replaced as the originals would have burnt down) the 'tinging' would drive everybody insane until one of my parents would insist on snuffing them out. 

Angel chimes Uploaded by hddod on December 8, 2009 Some rights reserved.

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Advent Sunday isn't going to happen on 1st December again for six years; it can be as early as the last week in November.

Easter

Uploaded by nat_mach on September 19, 2011 Taken in Hadlow, England © All rights reserved

When I was growing up I sang in a church choir. Easter was one of the busiest times of the year for us (apart from, of course, Christmas).

Holy Week began the week before with the joyous and triumphal Palm Sunday. Following the service a long suffering donkey (he served as Santa's reindeer at Christmas!) was pressed into service to head the procession from the church to the village hall; palms (which I suspect may actually have been pampas grass) and song.

There was a great deal of preparation during the week that followed, including the Easter Garden. A tray of turf with the tomb constructed from large pebbles and other bits of flora and fauna; to make the garden from the Gospels.

On Maundy Thursday the solemn part of Easter began with a serene and quiet vigil.

Good Friday (being a Bank Holiday) meant that the service could be observed at the traditional noon time. Another solemn service; the church stripped of all finery and decoration. Unfortunately the crucifix scene behind the alter always looked faintly ridiculous held up, as it was, by red steel legs.In the afternoon I'd usually listen to either Handel's Messiah or Jesus Christ Superstar.

Although the choir got the day off on Saturday others were busy transforming the church. On Easter Sunday morning the austerity of Good Friday was banished. The church would be a joyous riot of flowers and colour with joyous music to celebrate the risen Lord.

The church as I remember it is gone, several changes in clergy and staff, and most people I remember moved away - but I still hold a faint longing for those wonderful Easters past.