Christmas Pagaent at St. John's

The Fruck family in conference! Taken unaware!

The decorated cookies that the children did!

Downstairs in the church hall for Christmas cookies and coffee. The children decorated the cookies themselves with the help of their teachers!

Daddy & Mommy Fruck and Cassie and Julia. Proud parents of two lovely girls!

A little dark, unfortunately, but Mommy Fruck with Cassandra and Julia.

Two precious little children in the choir - posted with the permission of their parents.Left: Cassie right: Julia Don't all children look like little angels when they dress up like this and are on their best behaviour????

The children's choir singing in the front of the congregation.

It was a special day for the children of the church who sang delightfully and read their parts very well. The children's choir looked like angels in their lovely white costumes and their glittering halos. The church, itself, was decked out with Christmas finery and all the special symbols which signify this time of year in the Christian Calendar.

It takes a lot of courage for children to stand in front of the congregation and perform but I am sure they were not disappointed as this church is a very loving one who cares for both children and adults. After the service was over, the children each received a little gift of fruit and candies from what I could see. As you can imagine, this only added to the excitement for the little ones.

As I sit here and blog about this, I can hear Christmas carols from a choir singing in Gore Park. What a privilege to be able to do both at the same time! What a blessing to live downtown close to all the action!

The City of Hamilton and the Downtown business Improvement Association certainly tries to make Christmas as nice as possible for people, from having a little train and a Merry Go Round running until almost Christmas to having special concerts in the park.

Only one fly in the ointment, we still have homeless people and the food banks are needing more and more donations to feed those who are unemployed. There are now less and less people to give help. Even my daughter and her husband, who are both disabled people, give tinned goods to help others. I am so very proud of them.

Something to think about, the disenfranchised, the lonely, the sick and those who will sit alone at Christmas with not even a phone call. Having worked as a volunteer for many, many years in several different fields, I have seen the heartache and loneliness that so many people feel. Old people whose friends have died, single Moms struggling to feed their families, older single men sitting alone in a room, young folk alienated from families and the list could go on and on.

In this season of happiness and joy, let us remember the reason for the joy and give a hand in friendship to a person in need, in whatever way one can.