Comfort and Joy in an Advent Calendar of Stories

As with past Advents, we want to create an online Advent Calendar with a daily good news story in the countdown to Christmas - and this year, that good news is more important than ever.

The stories will be sent to your inbox each morning and will also feature in Grapevine and on our website.

But there are still some windows that have nothing behind them so we are looking for stories that connect and ground us all to the season, and the comfort and joy we will be bringing to our communities and congregations in this unprecedented time.

The theme connects our Calendar to the national Comfort and Joy campaign. We want to illustrate the joy churches can bring, but also the comfort they create through strength, both as individual churches and as communities.

The stories can, as usual, be about an be about a person or an Advent or Christmas event or activity, whether that is online, outdoor or - hopefully - back in our church buildings.

You may want to offer a reflection on preparing for Christmas this year, or maybe just what is inspiring you this year.

We also want to hear about the outreach you are doing this Christmas, stories about Christmas dinners for the homeless or lonely, a virtual Christmas tree festival or a nativity with a difference.

We would also love to hear from contributors from previous years about how this Christmas will be different for them.

And remember, the theme is Comfort and Joy which will link us into the national Christmas campaign.

Please send your story with pictures to comms@salisbury.anglican.org marking it 'For the Advent Calendar'.

No more than 200 words please!

We will need a picture that reflects what is happening, but that means you may need to send the picture over on the day or evening of an actual event.

Please let us know if this is the case.