Brrrrrr

Tonight we had our second slot for carol singing at our local shopping centre. We understood that we would be joined by another church but, because they wanted to survive until Christmas, they didn't arrive.

Our survival was threatened by the temperature - which was below freezing - and the somewhat inexplicable design of the centre whereby the roof runs out before the shops do. This afforded us a site with a wind ambience resembling the deck of a ship, and a floor temperature mirroring a polar research station.

Cinema-goers hurried by wondering what we were doing there (they would have wondered all the more had they been able to identify our average age underneath our multidinous layers of clothes.) A Shopping Centre operative looked over at us, wondering what we were doing there. On another evening he may have checked our credentials, but tonight he was content that the only offence we might be committing was against our circulatory systems. We wondered what we were doing there. We were, in short, a wonder. A bone-chilled, finger-frozen, teeth-chattering wonder.

Health and Safety considerations would have demanded that we instruct any member of the public who had stopped to listen to us to move on lest they sued us for their frostbite - this might even have been a consideration if someone removed their gloves to accept a leaflet.  In the event no-one was irresponsible enough to risk their well-being by stopping.

With a neat sense of timing one of my aunts had sent a Christmas card that arrived this morning.  It pictured a brightly-lit village church.  In a blizzard.  The choirboys are walking through the snow toward the sanctuary.  The very essence of Christmas, I thought, when I opened the card.

But now I know it is a fraud.

You can stand in the freezing cold.  You can stand and sing carols. 

What you can't do, is do both at once . . .