I wondered whether this ritual would fit best as a kitchen posting or a chapel posting. Since there was nothing in the chapel I decided to plumb for here. It is an Advent Ritual that has grown up at the table in our house over the years. Each day when Christmas Cards arrive we put them in a bread basket. To remind us of the importance we put a new lining in the basket. This year it’s a beautiful white linen liner -(will be lovely for bread and rolls after the Christmas period).
We don’t open the cards until we all sit down to our main meal of the day. At the end we take turns opening a card and reading the inscription. We talk about the people. As our children were growing up it gave us the opportunity to hand on the family stories to our children - like the card from Maisie and Alex - which gave us the opportunity to tell how they had provided an engine for our car when it died (and we had no income). It was our way to fulfil the invitation in Deuteronomy and later by Jesus, to tell your stories to your chilren and also in turn to pray for the people whose card we had opened.
Of course now adays we also include the names of those who send by email!
I’d be curious to hear if you find this useful and if you develop it in other ways.
Clownbarni
