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If you need your spirits raising and to get you in the Christmas mood don’t forget to come and join our Sing-along on Zoom on Tuesday 8th, 6-7pm. The Zoom numbers are the same as Zoom coffee.

We will be singing Christmas songs and carols and a words sheet is available to download here. Christmas hats tinsel and jumpers are all welcome, and there is definitely room for a mince pie and some mulled wine! We will be singing the 12 days of Christmas, and if anyone has any of these (or similar) in their house, they are welcome to hold them up in the appropriate verses: Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree – imagination and improvisation welcome! As before, inviting your family and friends to join us is perfectly appropriate if you would like to.

Our Christingle service this year will be on Facebook on Sunday 20th December at 4pm. It will include the opportunity to make your own Christingle. You will need an orange, some red tape/ribbon/paper, a small candle, 4 cocktail sticks, a selection of small sweets/dried fruit, a knife/apple corer and something to light the candle with. If you think you will struggle to get these things together, please do get in touch or collect a Christingle making kit for your child/ren from St John’s Church or Exeter Hall between 3pm and 4pm on Thursday 17th or Friday 18th December or at any time from St Mary’s Church porch on these days.

The order of service is now available to download. Please get in touch if you would like more information.

Churches Together in Kidlington have organised a “Nativity Walk” starting on Thursday 3rd December. We invite you to follow the Walk around the village in the coming days – seeking out all the familiar figures from the Nativity story which are on view at eleven different locations. Complete the Walk and you can collect a small prize. For all the details, including a map, just click here.

Well done everyone who has made mice, poppies, or painted stones in recent weeks to mark our seasons. We have now removed the poppies and the crib will going up this Saturday 28^th November in preparation for the Nativity trail and the filming of the Monty Mouse video for schools, residential homes, and families. All mice continue to be welcome (as they will be all through December). Please just pop your home made mouse anywhere in the nave for people to find as they come in to church.

As we set our sights on Advent and Christmas we now need to move the cross of stones too. If you have a painted stone for a loved one in the churchyard please could you come and collect it this week before Saturday 28th. Many thanks

We’ve just received a new newsletter from Joel and Fiona Kelling, working for the Church Mission Society in Amman, which you can download here.

We are now signed up to easyfundraising, a fund raising initiative that gives us money when you make purchases online from a wide range of shops (at no extra cost to you). These include John Lewis, Marks and Spencer, Debenhams, Boots, Waitrose, Majestic Wine and many others – but unfortunately the major supermarkets are currently opting out (that would have been too good to be true!).  For each person who joins and raises £5 by the end of December we can also earn a bonus of £5.

To help us raise funds this way we would ask you to register with easyfunding using this link.

When you register (giving an email address and password) you will be invited to download a “reminder” for your computer and/or mobile.  Then, every time you go to shop online at a participating site you will get a “pop-up” message confirming that your shopping will earn a donation, and you just go on with your ordering.

Please do give it a try and contact Margaret Day, the Giving Secretary, if you have any problems

Our next creative challenge for everyone is focussed on the crib. We are making a Christmas video to give to the local primary schools which tells the Christmas story from the point of view of a mouse and invites people to come to church and count the number of mice they can see in the crib and around the church. David Meara has written a brilliant poetic script and Naomi Heffer is going to use her video editing skills. Can you make a mouse to go in the crib at the beginning of December? S/he can be made from anything in any way – A few suggestions are pictured below.

In these grey wet days we want to keep our spirits up and have some fun. So we will be holding our very own sing-along! We can now confirm the Zoom Sing-along for 6pm till 7pm on Tuesday 17th November using the same zoom numbers  as we use for coffee. A song sheet with the words of the 15 chosen songs is available for you to download here. Then you can sing out to your heart’s content. Susy is hoping that some of you will be dancing too! Bring to your screens your drinks and nibbles, any party costumes and hats you fancy and your best pair of lungs.  Thank you to David Hewett and to the Heffer household for leading the singing and Susy for hosting the event. It is fine to invite your friends and family – just give them the zoom numbers and they can sing with us.

It is our custom in all three churches to collect and distribute Christmas gifts for local children who might not otherwise receive them. We divide them between the Oxford-based families charity ‘Homestart’ and the Children’s Centre in Bicester (which covers Kidlington families). If you would like to take part please choose and wrap a gift, label it as for a boy / girl of an age, (or indeed an adult) and bring it to any of our three churches by Sunday December 6^th or to the rectory. Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has already brought along a poppy to add to the display in St Mary’s Churchyard – just as Bet and Martin are doing here

There’s still plenty of time for you to make a poppy to “plant” (or leave it in the porch and we will plant it for you).  For all the details see our earlier post Remembrance Sunday.