I am signing copies of my new book Keeping Advent & Christmas at Southwark Cathedral from 12.30pm on Sunday.

The signing follows the 11am Advent Sunday Choral Eucharist and is part of The Friends Christmas Market.

Also signing books at Sunday lunchtime will be Timothy West and Prunella Scales whose book Our Great Canal Journeys: A Lifetime of Memories on Britain’s Most Beautiful Waterways accompanies their TV series.

Today is Christ the King Sunday although it is better known as Stir Up Sunday.

This is thanks to the opening words of the ancient collect for this Sunday which is now heard as the post communion prayer at today’s Anglican Eucharist.

Stir up, O Lord, the wills of your faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by you be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

So some people make their Christmas pudding today.

But it’s not Christmas yet. Today is the climax of the Christian year.

We begin Advent next weekend.

First blog post

This is the first of the blog posts which will follow the great days of Advent and Christmas and complement my new book Keeping Advent & Christmas.

But it will not stop in the New Year because Christmas, which ends at Candlemas on 2 February, gives way to Lent and Easter.

So this blog will run from Stir Up to the end of Easter in the summer.

A companion Keeping Lent & Easter book will  be available in the New Year.