Your busy time of the year, Vicar!

 

Clergy Christmas Planning Schedule Practical and Psychological, Real and Ideal

Christmas is a big thing and theologically it forms us. You can’t think about it too early or too much, in a way, but perhaps you do. If you try to prepare some things in January, you may well be asked to revert to the person in October. Your Christmas talk may be stale if you make it in August, though the deep freeze can really help you.  

It is always worth keeping your stuff from previous years and having a file on your computer for next year. Quite likely you will think of things this year when it is too late to use them. Or there will be things you think you could improve or try differently. And without your “Next Christmas” file you may forget your good ideas or questions.  

Some things I try to do in January or at any convenient time in the first two thirds of the year. This includes any work on clergy cover and the schedule of the actual services. We need to contact the donkey’s agent early on.

From September, I can feel Christmas really looming. Remembrance and Harvest and winter and a million other things loom so there is a need for some perseverance, jollity and self-care in this term of colds and winter vomiting bugs.

October is our hard deadline to work out details of all our service times, places and blurb so that we can finalise, order and distribute our churches Christmas card programme before the beginning of December, since we do a Christingle on the first Sunday of December. All this needs to go on the website etc. If I were brave, I would even try to update A Church Near You!

December is really focused on Christmas. The first couple of weeks might still have some routine meetings but personally I try not to have chapter, synod etc. in December. If it can wait ‘till January, why not? Though surprisingly if you are ahead on your Christmas prep or not yet quite ready to prepare (maybe you want to be topical or a deadline focuses your mind) there can be some bits of December that are surprisingly quiet.

If you are ordering props etc. for that school assembly, you might need a few more days than you think. Shops can run out of quiet basic items like advent calendars earlier than one might imagine. Amazon can fail.

The build up to the first big carol service is probably when you are really in the zone. For us this is before the Sunday before Christmas. But all this might depend on what else you have and when it falls. We have a regular Wednesday before Christmas service, which of course can be before the Sunday before Christmas!

Maybe your regular day off is impossible the week before Christmas.

Sadly you might just be totally pooped on Christmas day at lunch time. I have had a couple of years where I was bit poorly, couldn’t really be useful / the life and soul / just moved a bit of food around on my plate and went to bed.

Personally I like to take the traditional week off after Christmas, though inevitably it is quiet anyway. Getting away can be a hassle and an expense, but I think it is always worth it if possible. Quite a lot of stuff is closed this week. National Trust membership is wasted!

When you get back to work and the pile of emails has been assessed, its really worth a bit of a review and some notes for next year. It is easy to forget what you wanted to do differently. Maybe others will even have views! You could have a review and planning meeting, if you like that sort of thing.