Parliamentary candidate Clive Jones

What Christmas means to me. Christmas has always been a special time of the year with family and friends. From a very young age we spent time at church services, enjoyed Christmas food, played with new toys, watched lots of TV and played board games.

With a career in the toy industry, Christmas was a huge part of my working life. Christmas at work began in January with trade shows around the world testing out products for the following Christmas and deciding what we thought would be on December’s lists to Santa. It was a joy to be involved in developing, manufac turing, selling, delivering toys to retailers and to be in a store in the run up to Christmas and hear children and parents excited about something you had been involved in making.

These days, we take the opportunity of seeing different friends over Christmas and spending time with our family. It’s nice to relax and enjoy time together, remembering previous years and looking forward to the new year with enthusiasm and optimism. We think about the meaning of Christmas and the beginning of the Christian faith. From childhood we attended church services and carol concerts, and especially enjoyed them when our children were younger and taking part in nativity plays themselves. Christmas is also an inclusive time of the year with many friends who are not Christians but enjoy the season’s festivities.

For nearly 30 years I have been very involved with 2 children’s charities through my involvement with the toy trade. One of these supports smaller charities financially throughout the year and at Christmas with donations of toys. This year we delivered about 450 large boxes of toys to children’s charities around the UK, quite a few of them in the Reading and Wokingham area. Helping to brighten children’s Christmases has been important to me for many years. As Christmas approaches, we put up our tree, write our cards, start to listen once again to our favourite Christmas music and try to find the time to think about the past year, what was good and not so good and to be optimistic about the coming year. Remembering that we will be having a nice Christmas whilst some, through no fault of their own, may not have the same opportunities. We should do what we can to help to make sure that as many people as possible have a happy Christmas where they can be warm, have good food and enjoy time with other people.

Clive Jones

Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate for Wokingham.

Family carols

Bracknell Choral Society is holding a family carol concert at Newbold College in Binfield on Wednesday 20th December at 4pm.

Bracknell Choral Society is a very friendly non-auditioning choir of approximately 120 members. They perform a wide variety of music and strive to deliver high quality concerts.

Coffee mornings

Throughout the festive season, Green Watch from Wokingham Fire Station will hold several tea and coffee mornings at the fire station.

All are welcome to come along for a hot drink and a chat. There’s no need to register in advance or confirm attendance. Simply come to the fire station between 11am and 12pm on one of the designated mornings:

Tuesday, 19th December

Saturday, 23rd December