Nothing says Christmas more than watching that Harry Potter movie you’ve already seen 2,900 times, eating a mountain of lukewarm turkey and trying to work out where you’re going to put all those new socks.
Let’s not forget the traditional argument with your other half about whose job it was to buy all the batteries for the children’s new toys – which are currently a source of tension because nobody can turn them on.
Am I right?
If that sounds all too familiar and you fancy keeping the whole thing a bit more spiritual this year without giving up your gadgets, here are five ways to enjoy Christmas online:
Log on to a virtual church and talk about Star Wars
Everyday Church Online, which launched in the UK in September, runs virtual services every Sunday for a net-based congregation from around the world. Everyone’s invited to log on and chat while a recorded sermon is streamed.
So far, people from 61 different countries have logged on, according to online pastor Darren Parker.
“There are lots of reasons why people can’t get to church on a Sunday so we thought we would bring the church to them,” he says.
“The chat room is like the foyer of a church.”
Virtual prayer requests received from the global congregation have included:
thoughts for a patient in UK children’s hospital Great Ormond Street
a lady struggling with work in the United Arab Emirates
a family in Switzerland who log on via their smart TV
Its first Christmas theme is Star Wars, the subject of three festive sermons.
“We found some real truths [in the franchise] which compare to Christmas,” says Mr Parker.
“The new Star Wars is called The Force Awakens. Our sermons are called The Hope Awakens – it’s about awakening hope for humanity.”
The Star Wars sermon will be running throughout the day on the church’s website.
Carry out a Christmas mission in a virtual world
Guardians of Ancora is a recently launched, free-to-play fantasy game available on Android, iPhone and Kindle platforms. It’s developed by the same people behind the young people’s group the Scripture Union.
The game is aimed at eight to 11-year-olds and director Terry Clutterham says 45,000 were playing within four months of its release.
“Ancora is a weird, wonderful, amazing place but it is a fictional space where children enter as guardians,” he says.
“The problem with Ancora is that the light has been stolen from that world, so there is darkness around.
“It’s the role of the guardians to rediscover the lost treasured stories which are the stories of the Bible… and those stories help to light up the world.”
You get the idea.
Special content created for Christmas includes two new Bible-themed quests in which players find the birth of the baby Jesus.
