The Revd Fiona Thomas, Secretary for Education and Learning for the United Reformed Church, reflects on Christmases spent in remote villages in South India.
Each year we construct Christmas, building it up from memories, rituals and expectations.
In the early 80s I celebrated four Christmases in remote villages in South India with a small team of international development volunteers. For the villagers, Christmas Day was a normal working day – they’d turn up at the office and expect us to be having meetings and working as usual on transforming society. So we did what we could to make the day special.