January 2006

You may have wondered how we 'foreigners' celebrate Christmas in Corfu. Many British and other foreign national ex-pats go 'home' for Christmas but for those of us who stay here in Corfu one of the highlights is getting together to sing traditional Christmas carols.

At Holy Trinity Church our celebrations kicked off with the childrens' Nativity Play. This year Jackie Dallos from Lefkada had written an adaptation of 'The Little Drummer Boy' which the Sunday School children acted out for us. They even got the congregation to sing one of the songs in two parts, with no previous practice! For the children we also have a Christingle Service with candle procession round the streets close to HTC, symbolising taking the light of Christ out into the World.

That same evening we held our traditional service of Nine Lessons and Carols. The church was packed and each lesson was read both in English and one other language including, Albanian, German, Spanish, Irish Gaelic and Welsh, as well as Greek. Afterwards we all retired to the Library for mulled wine and mince pies.

It has become quite a tradition that on the Thursday evening before Christmas a group of Carolers takes to the streets of Corfu singing carols and collecting money for a local charity. When we first started this we got some very strange looks from the locals but now we've become quite a feature and last year when the weather prevented the outing we were sorely missed! Again, mulled wine and mince pies are a good incentive!

As in good old Blighty many of us attend the Midnight Mass which celebrates the beginning of Christmas Day.

If you are interested in knowing more about the activities of the Anglican Church of Holy Trinity, Corfu please go to our website at www.holytrinitycorfu.net Wishing you a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2006.

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