We all gathered in St George’s Church and heard of the difficulty that Mary and Joseph were having – they were travelling home, needed somewhere to stay for the night and Mary, well, she was pregnant! Tracey Elliott came up with a plan of action, we all downed our cups of tea, sung a rousing song (actually Little Donkey is quit slow but it was perfectly apt) and then we set off on our mission, to find room for Jesus! “Who’s got room for Jesus?”

The Kings Arms didn’t have any room – Dan at The Rock turned us all away (although he did mention that it was odd that some of his locals carried on walking passed). There was no one in at Ye Old Shepherds B&B but the sign said ‘No Vacancies’ and Lorraine told us that they were trying to collect up their animals along the lane and to keep trying.
Farmer Matthews had no room at his B&B either. I though he was a bit rude to begin with, shouting at the crowd on his front lawn, but he told us all of a stable just round the corner… so that’s where we all went!

At the stable, we got everything in place; the animals, the shepherds, the Kings, Mary and Joseph too.

Sometimes it’s hard to find Jesus in our lives but Sam Johnson found him on the green, tucked behind the tree just by the grit bin. We carefully retrieved him and placed him in the centre of the stable, we appropriately sang “Away in a Manger”, we read out the prayers from the children (Mr Thomas corrected someone’s ‘are’ and ‘our’ confusion) and we celebrated and remembered that we should make room for Jesus in our (are?) lives.

We also thoroughly enjoyed sharing our lunch in the village hall too (Morgan wants the butternut squash soup recipe please) and the community wished the Upwards a lovely trip!