A good headline, don’tcha think? Well, it’s not totally true, but my Twitter stream is already reporting a smattering of cancelled Sunday services. The Vicar is about to call round and cancel our 9am service which is mainly attended by elderly folk. The snow here is a good 6″ deep, and still falling and once it’s frozen overnight it will be even more hazardous for our more senior members.
Most sadly of all, live nativities have been hit by non-delivery of donkeys. The one we were going to attend at our old church in Wolverhampton today was cancelled as both the donkey (coming from Shropshire) and baby Jesus (coming from Tipton) were unable to make an appearance because of the snowfall.
I’m just praying that attendance our Nativity Service tomorrow morning and the Carol Service in the evening isn’t drastically depleted. Some of our church (and Christmas choir) members live outside the parish (and up steep hills), so they may well struggle to get in. It’s such a special time of year for churches and it would be very sad to miss all the fun and celebrations and the opportunity to share Christmas joy with folk who don’t often join us.
The Vicar's Wife 
We feel your pain here in Yorkshire. We’ve got no snow this time (yet) but had to cancel a plethora of Advent activities, including our Lunch Club Christmas dinner, in the earlier round of snow this month. It’s a shame not only for those who are planning the church activities but also for those older members of the church family who are housebound for the duration.
I love it – ‘Baby Jesus (coming from Tipton)’. Makes me think of when Nathaniel says ‘Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?’ in John 1!
Do hope most of your events have gone off well, despite the white stuff.
Thankfully my bit of middle England escaped the snow this week, so though I had to switch the electric heaters on Saturday night in order to take the chill off the church, we had about 40 grown ups and a dozen children for our Carols round the Crib service this morning.
Kids clutched nativity figures until called to populate the Crib; grandparents wiped a tear away; carols were lustily sung and people stayed on to drink and nibble – decimating the Churchwarden’s supply of sloe gin yet again. A merry time was had by all – and I hope a similarly happy Christmas will be celebrated up and down the country – snow or no!
Here in NE Hants we were without donkey, sheep and sound system, and the stable (normally constructed by Scouts on the green outside the pub next door to the church) was improvised in the church porch.
However, baby Jesus (Elinor aged 2 weeks) was as good as gold, and coped well with being suddenly woken from her toasty push chair hidden in church, wrapped in an old blanket and plonked in the porch on a hay bale!
Out of all this the idea that we could use the Church porch again, even without snow… at the risk of upsetting the Scout leader who spent hours constructing a boltable ‘stable’ that could be constructed in 15 minutes!
The impromptu hot drinks in church were a big hit too – also worth repeating!
We have no snow here on the Nottingham/Derbyshire border, so no impact on our services. But we’ve noticed a great reduction in school children passing as we do our week of hot chocolate giveaway before school. So viral illness the main difficulty here. Hope the snow and ice eases soon for you.