THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS: Sarah Callaghan

Christmas starts in my house with the putting up of the decorations. For me, it’s the time where you can finally get excited and feel Christmas is coming! When we decide to decorate, we get down the tree and ornaments from our attic, blast our 90’s Christmas CD, and all come together, making the house look as sparkly and colourful as possible. The general routine is me and my sister arguing over the colour scheme and running round with tinsel and glitter while mum and dad closely follow, fixing and taking down everything we have done. However, we get to spend time together and laugh, which in my eyes is what Christmas is all about. The tree and house get decorated with sentimental ornaments which bring back memories, either ones being from past places and holidays we have been lucky enough to go on, or from loved ones, past and present which remind us they are always there during Christmas time.

Christmas day is not an extravagant event in our house. It simple, but that’s how we like it. It is a day where you have no worries or chores (with exception of being forced to help with the Christmas dinner), and you just get to talk, laugh and spend time with people you love. I see this year as even more special, as it is the first year my sister has lived at university and the first time I will see her after months will be the Christmas holidays. However, Christmas day is pretty much the same every year. Yet it is something me and my family don’t become bored of, or pass by just thinking ‘another Christmas’ has come around. We make the most of it, embracing it as a time we can all come together and spend time as a family.

THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS: Martin Fuller.

The first Christmas that I can remember is when I got my BMX bike! It was an absolutely brilliant Christmas. Those where the days when Santa was so real! In fact I can't actually remember when I found out that Santa wasn't a real person. Hmm? Oh well!!

Over the years Christmas has meant many things to me, when I was young it was all about presents and Santa. Then as I became a bit older it was still about presents but it became more about helping others to have a good christmas. I with my family went to the missionaries of charity to serve the homeless and that was humbling in itself! My look on Christmas changed again not only was it about presents and helping others but it was about how we dress Christmas. I became more interested in how our house looked, I wanted to decorate the tree every year I wanted an order to the house because I wanted it to be dressed beautifully for Christmas! That became my favourite part of Christmas, it became my focus, it became MY Christmas! Throughout this I knew the real story of Christmas, being the birth of Jesus but it never really sunk into my life, it never was the centre.

Decorating is still a fantastic part of my Christmas as is the turkey dinner, the time with family, the rest, pretending that Santa is real (although still a part of me still thinks he is) but they are no longer the centre of my Christmas. You can decorate Christmas with all of the items mentioned above but they hold no reality of Christmas. The reality is the story of a baby being born in a stable, yes a stable! Strip away all of the decorations that show what Christmas apparently is, you get my saviour, our saviour! Jesus.

Think when you open your presents, when you sit around the table with your presents, when you watch your favourite films, over this period that we celebrate, there are people that don't have the luxuries and don't have the family to share with, pray for them.

In the end Christmas boils down to one person, Jesus Christ! Don't  X him from this holiday, Christmas starts with CHRIST and he is our savour and our friend. However you dress Christmas he is always apart of it, we don't realise but he is. Don't leave him in the background.

The first Christmas that I can remember is when I got my BMX bike! It was an absolutely brilliant Christmas. This year and every year to come I will remember Jesus and that makes CHRISTmas absolutely brilliant!

THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS: Emma Fuller.

When I was younger I remember before Christmas sitting on our living room floor, with the Argos catalogue and a pen, going through the toy section, circling items that I wanted to get for Christmas. This often ended up with most of the catalogue circled much to the upset of my mum. But really I was just going through and circling things that I thought 'I might just fancy' for Christmas. Obviously I had no regard for the value of money.

On Christmas Eve my brother and I would be sent to bed so that Santa could come and deliver the presents. We would be so excited and would perform our special handshake. This consisted of shaking hands and saying " Right.....Goodnight!!" and pretending to go to bed. But really we would wait to see if the other went to bed first. We would catch each other out and repeat the "Right, Goodnight!" handshake over and over until one of us gave in (Usually me) or our parents shouted up the stairs for us to get to bed. We continued this tradition until my brother got married and left home last year.

Christmas has always been a huge family time, a time to eat together, share together, talk together, have fun. A lot of hurts are often healed at Christmas.

I have gone to church since I was one, and we always attend lots of church services over the Christmas period. It's the busiest month in our church calender. It wouldn't be Christmas without the Carols By Candlelight services at Roby church. We go on Christmas day, Christmas eve, and before. I sing in the choir and this year I have also learnt 4 carols in sign language.

The Christmas Story has always played a great part in my Christmas Traditions. But the true meaning and feeling of the story has only sunk in more as I got older. As I fully understood the extent of what was happening in the story, the plan god had. What God had in store for each one of the characters. Particularly the 3 main characters;

Jesus- The son of God, the lamb, the almighty, come to earth to be a weak, little, helpless baby and then to grow up to become the saviour of the world.

Mary- A teenage mother, pregnant before marriage but sill a virgin, she would had faced outcasting and disgrace, but she knew that God had a plan. How trusting! What an inspiration.

Joseph- The father who wasn't the father, but was the father, if you get me. He still loved Jesus as his own, he still took Mary as his bride, even though their engagement was turbulent. He trusted in God. What a man!

This Christmas, lets not forget the joy and the true meaning of the season. Lets take time out of the hustle and bustle of modern Christmas times and pause to think of that baby, in the manger JESUS, the saviour of the world. Of the mother who risked ridicule to carry the child, the father, who stood by his bride and had the strength to bring up the man who became the saviour. Let us thank god that he had the BIG plan and that it came through to completion.

THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS: Brett Rainey

What Christmas means to me? I was thinking about this the other day and surprisingly, there really wasn’t that much to put in it. It was the usual stuff you see on Christmas cards about everybody being in a good mood, enjoying the snow, comfort food etc., but there wasn’t really anything of proper substance that jumped straight into my mind. I don’t suppose I could even use the reply of the Christmas story, seeing as how my Christmas seems to be more and more centred on the Xmas shopping; capitalism gone mad, or Christmas becoming more of a secular holiday, or even both, I wouldn’t like to say.

However, what I did realise was that those things I initially dismissed as fluff to keep the warm-hearted happy were, in fact, very important things. They’re things that at any other time of the year would be the best things in my life; maybe not the food but, as most people who know me could tell you, it would still be pretty high up on my list.

After a little pondering (which, by the way, is a massively underrated word), It clicked with me that this dismissal was because at Christmas, that’s exactly how these things are presented. All those good things like family and friends, and giving and receiving presents, are the times when you can forget about all the bad stuff happening and just kick back and have fun. The way they have been sold to us though, as things from ‘the good old days’ means we automatically dismiss them as nostalgic bumbling, instead of recognizing that the reason they are still there is because we still want them. I do not know any one person alive now or in the history of the species that has not needed relationships with other people. We pretend that we are above it, that we’re far too metropolitan and sophisticated for things like pulling crackers, but we do it anyway, because we secretly just want those special moments with people we love.

So, to me that is Christmas - it’s about how we increasingly just try to ignore our human nature and be the super-cool suburbanites we see on TV, but really we just want a good hug and an awful sweater.

THIS IS MY CHRISTMAS: Rebecca Richardson.

Christmas ..... I don't think people stand there and think for one minute what the actual meaning of Christmas is. Christmas also starts with CHRIST which I think is pretty amazing but I'm not sure whether some people have ever realised that. As a christian Christmas day is about the birth of Christ. People automatically think Christmas is about presents and playing with toys and the latest technology all day but for me this isn't all what Christmas is about.

My Christmas is made up of getting up really early at about 6am and running down the stairs with my brother to open our presents first. Once we have opened them we go and get ready for church and any new clothes we have been given for Christmas we wear. When we get to church the vicar always asks right what time did everyone get up this morning and we all have a competition of who got up the earliest which is quite funny.

On Christmas day I always make time in the day whether it's in the service or in my room on my own to pray and thank god for how amazing he is and thank him for giving us this day to celebrate the birth of Christ but to also spend time with the most amazing people in our lives as well as god which is our family and our friends. I also pray for those who can't be hear with us but hope god is keeping them safe and pray that they are watching over us with big smiles on their faces.

At the end of the day I have a lovely Christmas dinner with the family and look forward to seeing my sister who I haven't seen in nearly a year now she lives further away from home which is amazing. I thank god for us all being able to spend Christmas day together as a family.

FASHION & STYLE: My favourite things.

Peter pan collars. Studded cropped leather jackets. High waisted vintage Levi’s. Black Doc Martens that are completely battered. Men’s cable knit jumpers. Bracelets that mean something. Huge Petticoat Skirts. Band T-shirts. Anything that involves a rainbow pattern, even though I know I am far too old. Shift dresses. Velvet. Blazers with a razor sharp cut. The perfect white pussy bow blouse. Anything involving sequins and glitter. EXTRA thick black tights. Men’s brogues. Excessively large bows on pretty much anything. Perfectly winged eyeliner. Polka dots, always polka dots. Red heart sunglasses. Black leather dresses. Baggy Cardigans. Satchels. Duffle coats. Pendant necklaces. My red converse. White lace dresses. Red lipstick. A smile.