Jesus comes to us at darkest time of year to bring light

'Christmas will be very happy for some people, but not everyone'

- Stephen Cottrell

NOT every Christmas is happy. We can look at the same thing and see it differently. Do the same things and experience them differently. At one and the same time, the classic nativity scene we know so well - the stable, the animals, Jesus lying in the manger, Mary at his side is an idyllic scene of joy and peace.

But it is also a scene of fearful desperation. A teenage pregnancy. Nowhere to stay. A birth in the outhouse at the back of a pub. A poll tax summons, and the fury of a tyrant king raging against the birth of a rival.

Christmas will be very happy for some people. But not for everyone. Families come together, but often it is the ones we love who hurt us the most. And some families are broken. Some people will be alone.