A North Yorkshire market town is preparing to become angelic this Christmas with angels on street corners and in shop windows .
Shops and local businesses in Bedale are being invited to take part in a competition to create angels to display in the town’s shop windows as part of an ‘Angel trail’ which will spread out to other nearby villages. And on December 20th churches will come together for a retelling of the nativity story stopping at different places around the town centre.
One of the organisers is local vicar, Revd Ian Robinson, who hopes that the result will be an Angel Trail around the town to outdo Christmas displays of previous years. In 2012 Bedale has had a knitted sheep trail in 26 local shop windows and in 2013 a ‘Follow the star’ trail with 32 local businesses taking part each displaying a wooden star (2013).
“Angels About is a project developed by Churches Together in Bedale” explained Ian. “It links the town council, schools, businesses and churches in activities throughout advent to show the teamwork of the town and to provide opportunity for people to re-engage with the real meaning of Christmas and the spirituality of Angels, a universal symbol of love, hope and protection.”
Every local business in Bedale is being invited to create their own angels and enter them into the angel competition while there will also be angels provided for the windows of those businesses that are unable to enter the competition.
Every competition angel will be accompanied by a verse from the Bible referring to Angels – Ian says there are more than three hundred different verses to choose from.
Meanwhile the plans include some local schools teaching lessons about the place of Angels in different faiths and large 1.5m tall angel figures to be positioned around the town and surrounding villages.
Ian says the whole community is getting involved: “There will be a prize giving, local Star radio will be providing promotions, Cuzins Restaurant at the golf club are major supporters and sponsors. There will be competitions for the best angels in various categories and the best angel stories written in different age groups.”