Every year for the past 30 years, we have created our Christmas in the countryside. It’s cold and crisp and the houses and farms all around us are lit up as if it is a movie. The town next-door lights the bridge, and there is a hustle and bustle as the restaurants and bars are open to the freezing customers who sometimes trudge through mounds of snow, and sometimes not.

Christmas is a strange and beautiful time. A time to exchange presents and say goodbye to the old year and begin the new year. It’s a time to pull Christmas crackers. It’s a time to also remember how fortunate some of us are and to wish good tidings across the world in these difficult times. A time  to wish for peace and better times ahead. It’s  a time to play the Bells of Dublin by the Chieftains, watch White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life.  Here in the countryside looking up into the brilliant sky of sparkling lights, tracing the shape of the plough , being with our family it’s humbling.