Advent: 24 December 2022
Greetings… …on Christmas Eve. It’s the penultimate day in our Advent Calendar, and so the second last letter in the English alphabet – Y. Y is for… Yule. Yule was a midwinter festival observed by Germanic and Norse…
Search by author: Tracy Niven
Advent: 23 December 2022
Good morning, Behind our window today is the letter X. X is for… not very much really. X-rays of ancient wood some think come from the actual manger? Xylophone version of Joy to the World? But X is also for Xmas. …
Advent: 21 December 2022
Good morning… …on this, the shortest day of the year – in the northern hemisphere. Our honorary Pagan Chaplain has organised for the third year a candlelit labyrinth which all are invited to walk this evening, on the…
Advent: 20 December 2022
Greetings, In our Advent A to Z we open the window today for the letter U. U is for… the University of St Andrews. And what I’ve found is a rare copy of directions for a University of St Andrews Nativity. It seems…
Advent: 19 December 2022
Good morning, As we begin the final working week before Christmas, it is time for T. And T is for… Truth. In the prologue to John’s gospel, we hear that “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the…
Advent: 18 December 2022
Good afternoon, on the fourth Sunday in Advent, when a fourth candle was lit on advent wreaths in countless churches. Behind this window is the letter S, which could stand for stable, shepherds, strangers or the…
Advent: 17 December 2022
Good morning, We woke up yesterday to snow in St Andrews. For a few hours, the town was blanketed with snow, with white rooves, branches and pavements underfoot. As we’ve reached R in our Advent Calendar, what R was…
Advent: 16 December 2023
Greetings, We’ve reached a letter with the highest scrabble score of 10 in today’s Advent Calendar – Q. What could Q be for? Well, how about Quirinius, whom some children believe only appears in the Nativity story to…
Advent: 15 December 2022
Greetings, Behind today’s window in our Advent Calendar A to Z is the letter P. P is for… peace. In some ways, the Christmas story doesn’t have much about it that is peaceful. Mary is initially disturbed by the…
Advent: 14 December 2022
Good morning, O is for… Ox and Ass, the two animals traditionally depicted as attending the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Neither is mentioned in the two gospels which tell the story, Matthew and Luke, but early…