Churches come into their own at Christmas time—even a heathen like me can appreciate stained glass windows lit up from inside, their jewel colours like lights on a child’s Christmas tree. When we pushed open the heavy oak doors of St Saviour’s, the warm smell of candle wax and pine cones drew us in. The place was packed already—St Saviour’s has a healthy congregation all year round, due in no small part to my Aunty Gerry—but at Christmas, everyone and his dog turns up. Though the dog has to wait in the porch, mind.
“We’d better go up to the gallery,” I murmured, but Mum spotted us. Well, with me in the psychedelic cardigan topped off with Aunty Mags’s tea-cosy, and Neil still wound up in Aunty Des’s scarf, she’d have had to have been struck blind not to.
She stood up and waved franticall
