My early thoughts on Christmas were very rational. The prophets didn’t foretell the coming of Jesus but rather referenced events of their own time. The virgin birth was due to the (misleading) translation of the Hebrew word for a young woman into the Greek for a technically virginal woman. Santa Claus was a legend, so we didn’t tell our children about him. That eventually proved to be unsustainable: “Daddy, who is that man in red in the shop window?” My first experience of Christmas in Germany blew that rationality out the window. On Christmas Eve we headed out to go to the midnight service. That night it snowed for the first time, so we walked on virgin snow towards the Church with its warm, inviting light. It was so overwhelmingly picture-postcard beautiful, that I had to rethink my attitude to Christmas. Moreover, the service was held in darkness apart from a single candle so that the biblical passages could be read. Then, at midnight, everyone’s candles were lit from the central candle, powerfully symbolizing the spread of light from a central source.