by Peg Prendeville

It’s nice to hear the good news of Cathal Cummane and Sarah Lee’s engagement last weekend, following on from Ciara O’Gradys recently. Wishing good luck and happiness to all.

It’s only a week to Christmas 2024 and everybody is busy preparing for the big day.  As we get older time seems to go faster. I can’t believe that I’ve been occupying this corner of the Athea News for about 25 years. I sincerely wish a very happy peaceful contented Christmas to all you readers. I hope you and I will be organised enough to take quiet moments here and there to appreciate and give thanks for all the good things that we have been given in life and I look forward to continuing this column in the New Year when the evenings will be lengthening again and hopefully the world will settle down and be at peace

I leave you with a sonnet I wrote some time ago.

Christmas Eve

After Christmas Eve Mass we walked back home

The full moon guiding us, lighting the way.

And I thought back on that first Christmas time

When the shepherds saw the star in the sky.

They sensed that history was being made

The same sense of wonder was with us now

Two thousand years later; it cannot fade.

The moonlit sky invited me to bow

At the thought of Divine becoming Man

In order to show humans how to love.

A crazy idea but that was the plan.

The man in the moon smiles down from above.

As we walked back the road on Christmas Eve

That kindly light cemented my belief.

Peg Prendeville