I wonder how many people remember the children’s TV programme Crackerjack?
It used to feature a quiz in which the young contestant was given a prize to hold if they got an answer right and a cabbage if they answered incorrectly.
Of course, both prizes and cabbages mounted up until it was impossible to keep hold of everything…
It seems to me that December can be rather like that quiz.
We can find ourselves struggling under everything that the build-up to Christmas piles on to us.
For some of us this comes in the form of tasks and events: some welcome, maybe others less so, but all demanding time and energy.
For others, the real problem is the burden of expectations.
It’s almost impossible to turn on the TV, open a website or even look at a bus shelter without being bombarded with images of what Christmas ‘should’ look like – with genial gatherings of friends and family, perfectly presented food and, of course, expensive presents.
The expectation that Christmas should be busy, sociable and fun can weigh us down whether we’re caught up in it or feel as if we’re missing out.
How many of the things we carry at this time of the year are helpful and life-affirming?
I wonder how many of them help us to remember the bigger issues Jesus spoke of: justice and mercy and faith?
If you’ll pardon the simile, are we in danger – like the child in the Crackerjack quiz – of holding on to the cabbages and dropping the prizes?
The Revd Ann Cogle, is a curate at Reading Minster, writing on behalf of Churches Together in the Centre of Reading
