Saturday Live at Christmas

Editor's Note: Saturday Live is Radio 4's Saturday morning magazine show featuring extraordinary stories and remarkable people. You can listen to the show here. In this blog post presenter Sian Williams looks ahead to Christmas and the next show. Read on for a Christmas blog from Richard Coles below - CM

As we sprint towards Christmas, most people are probably saying the same thing: next year, I'll have it all done by November. On our mantelpiece, there are stockings for five children, two parents and a Granddad. Santa's Little Helpers (or Subordinate Clauses, as they're known in our house) are going to be very busy over the next few days. Those TV ads showing hassled Mums screeching around, wrestling with wrapping and trussing up turkeys, have got the wild-eyed expression right, but the sigh of relief and the weary, yet happy expression as they look over squabbling offspring when the day arrives, feels a little misplaced.

The best moments of Christmas, to many, are the peaceful ones. When the inevitable chaos quietens, it allows other emotions in, welcomed or not. The stillness makes you think about those who don't have a house full of noise. The quiet is a reminder to reflect.

This Saturday, among our usual baubles, we'll have some balm. William Seighart returns after the success of his Poetry Pharmacy and this time, his theme is the pleasure of solitude.

After our interview with a woman who took up painting after an accident, we hear from a man who, after injury, discovered he could play the piano. We're in a guitar shop to listen to a fuzz box, we hear from someone who sounds remarkably like Al Pacino as he opens his presents, John McCarthy's looking at churches with writer Iain Sinclair and our studio guest is actor, Sanjeev Bhaskar.

A little Christmas cracker? Hope you can join us, at nine.

Richard Coles presents Saturday live with Sian Williams. He has written a Christmas blog below.

Christmas in the Vicarage is day of two halves.

Morning begins with a rather cursory Matins because after Midnight Mass the night before we rarely get to bed before two, so Matins at seven, alone and half asleep, is done on auto sky pilot. Then we have our eight o’clock service , which tends to be for older people who are looking for business as usual, not bells and whistles. We have a steady congregation of about thirty, and it holds up on Christmas morn.

It's followed by our main service which is bells and whistles and all the rest of it choir and candles and glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ria, but actually we see only about sixty people, half strength, partly because some have come to Midnight Mass, but also because the young families, once the backbone of Christmas morning services, no longer seem to come. It’s a tradition which is fading, and now we see most of our young people on Christmas Eve at the Nativity which has got rather improvised lately. Last year one of the Three Kings came dressed as Darth Vader and gave his light sabre to the Baby Jesus.

We also have a Christingle service on the Sunday before Christmas and hundreds come to that, for where there are children there are parents. The busiest Christmas service is actually Midnight Mass, with about two hundred and fifty turning up; but really the added extras have become the main event, and Christmas Day itself is fairly quiet.

We’re done by midday, the church is locked up and I’d love to say I then go and help out with the homeless, but actually I go to our home and either family comes to us or we go to family for lunch, but by six we’re home and in our pyjamas with a whisky in hand and It’s A Wonderful Life on the DVD. Merry Christmas everybody and don’t forget Zuzu’s petals.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Saturday Live!

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