A headline in the 'I' newspaper on 25 August 2014 said, "Too many parents don't chat to their children." Reg Bailey the government's 'childhood tsar' tells that dinner table conversation is in decline in UK households and he is also quoted as saying "how few of the British families had a dining room table or a kitchen table". This decline is a sign that all is not well for British children in the 21st Century.

The festive season with the carols, the Bank holidays are an ideal opportunity to talk to the younger members of our friends and families in the context of the promises of God and what happened over two thousand years ago. I was rather baffled when I heard a former work colleague say they had bought their first child a book about Christmas which mentioned nothing about the Biblical account in it, but solely about traditions like Christmas trees and so on.

Deuteronomy 11.19 (NKJV) directed the children of Israel told to "teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up ." The background to this was the giving of the Law and all the events of the Exodus from the miracles in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, the wilderness experience and the settling in the promised land. But it is clear they were being instructed to talk to their children.

Jesus himself had plenty of time for children. He said "suffer the little children to come unto me" or as it says in the New King James version, "Let the little children come to Me".

Timothy had been brought up from childhood to know the scriptures (2 Tim.3.14-15). It is implied in the first chapter of the second epistle to Timothy that he had known of those scriptures from his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice. They appear to have done a good job and can be an example to us.

Therefore let us take this festive season as an opportunity to share the wonderful message with the younger ones, like the angel who brought the message of deliverance to Zacharias and Elisabeth and then to the shepherds near Bethlehem.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.