Dear friends in Christ,

As we come to the end of Advent, we look with joyous expectation to the celebration of Christmas. 

We have had a busy fall here at Christ Church and we are so very grateful for the help and support that we have received from our members and from the community.

November saw us once again collecting Jello and gift cards to help the Vaughan Food Bank with their Christmas Hamper program.  When everything was tallied up we collected 530 boxes of Jello and $3,075 worth of gift cards - thank you for your incredible generosity! While this seems like a lot this year the food bank will deliver 785 hampers – the need is great and we are so glad to be able to help.

The last weekend of November saw us participating in the Annual Christmas in the Village event. Our booth was very popular as we provided chilly visitors with Hot Chocolate to keep them warm - handing out over 2400 cups, most with marshmallows…we went through a lot of marshmallows! For those that needed a little more we gave away over 400 hand warmers and 1000 candy canes!  Thank you to all our volunteers, who were quite busy.  While the hot chocolate was free we did put a basket for donations to the food bank and when all was said and done collected over $1,700!

On December 13 a small but mighty group met at the church to decorate for Christmas and it looks wonderful ~ thank you to all those who helped. For those of you who did not get the opportunity to bring in a poinsettia, but would still like to have one in the church in memory of loved ones for the Christmas season, you can drop off a donation towards the purchase of plants on Sunday, December 21 or Tuesday, December 23.

This coming Sunday, December 23, we will celebrate the season with a Service of Lessons & Carols at 10:00 am. Come to once again hear the scripture and familiar Carols that lead us to the Nativity of our Lord and join us for a time of fellowship following the service.

And that brings us to Christmas! We will have two services on Christmas Eve at 5:30 and 9:00 pm. On Christmas morning, there will be said communion service at 9 am. We hope that you will be able to join us at one or more of our services. For those of you that are not able to make it to church there will be pre-recorded services available on our website.

On behalf of the Wardens, and congregation and myself, we wish you as happy, safe and blessed Christmas.

Peace in Christ,

Rev. Fr. Mark Stacey+ 

P.S. Unfortunately, we are not able to get to the Margaret Centre to drop off our clothing donations before Christmas but we are going to arrange for a drop off in the new year. If you have warm winter clothing that you no longer need, especially coats, hats, gloves, scarfs, socks and boots please bring them to church as soon as possible. They are also in need of toiletry items like shampoo, soap, toothpaste and tooth brushes. Again, thank you for your generosity to this much needed Outreach program! 

They will call him Emmanuel, which means "God with Us". Matthew 1:23b