Now that Christmas is over it seems like an appropriate time to review the 2011 Beach Hut Advent Calendar and to say a few thank yous.

Firstly thank you to all the participants who created such wonderful pieces of art, performances and events. The quality of the work and the amount of effort that people put in was truly wonderful and the Beyond team loved coming down each night to see the incredible creations in all weathers. Thanks also to Higgidy pies for their generosity in giving us Christmas pies to give out on Christmas Eve and vouchers for a years supply of pies which we split between two families who had been out to all 24 huts - that was more than even the Beyond team managed!

We had some great media coverage this year with Meridian coming along on the first night attempting to do a live broadcast which unfortunately was subject to gremlins but which did get broadcast the following night.



Also BBC Breakfast came along a couple of times to film a few different huts and broadcast this lovely piece a number of times on Christmas Day.



Beyond is planning our next event which will be in Lent which begins on 22nd February so keep an eye on www.beyondchurch.co.uk for full details about that.

We finally got there! Although of course the actual event we've all been waiting for throughout December isn't until tomorrow, but we did get to the final beach hut tonight. Hut 225 was a real coming together of all of the things we've been talking about this month as we make our journey with the holy family towards Christmas.



For the first time all of the nativity figures which Flo Pepper has so diligently crafted were brought together in their own stable. Each figure was featured at one of the huts through the month and gradually added to the story that we followed day by day.



They were watched over by a collage of faces made up of photographs taken each night of some of the pilgrims who've followed the story night by night. Old and young all looked down on the stable, waiting to see what would happen tomorrow when God enters our world as a little baby. Central to the whole collage was a photo of a pregnant woman who came along one night and who's baby is due on Christmas day - we wish her well for the auspicious day.

As part of the event tonight we read the Christmas story, stopping at various points to sing an appropriate carol - O Little Town of Bethlehem for Joseph and Mary's journey; Away in a Manger at Jesus Birth; We Three Kings when the wise men arrived and finally the Sussex Carol, celebrating everything that this night means as God enters our human world.

We hope that your Christmas gathering is full of joy, hope and peace and that you experience something of what it means that God is with us. Every blessing this Christmas from all at Beyond.

Our next event will be in late in February for Lent 2012 - watch www.beyondchurch.co.uk for announcements.

The penultimate hut of 2011 directed our eyes to the skies with an amazingly detailed map of the heavens with stars and constellations labelled and drawn out for us all to see. Unfortunately the weather didn't aid our stargazing as the clouds scudded by propelled by some very strong winds, only stopping to drop copious amounts of rain on us from time to time.

Hut 449 was bathed in a beautiful royal purple light in honour of the coming king and as a reminder that this is still Advent, the season for which the church uses the colour purple. In fact the light was ultraviolet and was designed to make the white stars and constellations shine out into the darkness. One of the odd side effects of this was that it was very hard to see the images properly - they appeared to be out of focus no matter how hard we tried to look at them and bring them in to focus.

Even the photographs we took seemed to have trouble focussing on the star imagery, creating some lovely, colourful effects.

Lots of people had fun trying to decide which of these was the star of Bethlehem and even though Jon, the creator of the hut, knew which star he had nominated for that role, he kept this information to himself and let everyone spend their time star -gazing and guessing.

Our final hut is number 225 and for the first time we will bring together all the characters that we have been focussing on during our journey through Advent to form a unique Beyond nativity scene. The theme will be 'Gathering for the Great Event' and we will be creating a host of witnesses from photographs taken of some of the participants each night as well as welcoming a crowd of people and a live donkey to join in with our retelling of the Christmas story and singing of carols together to celebrate.

As we get closer to the big event on Christmas day we are beginning to gather more of a crowd in our nativity themes. Tonight the theme was angel choirs and Janette had created a special painting for this which was installed in hut 374 along with some other paintings by local artists.


This included another painting by Janette entitled 'heaven' which was done in the style of Klimt. There is an obvious connection between angels and heaven and so it felt appropriate to have these paintings alongside each other.



Above all this was an icon painted by Sister Gillian who is a nun based at an order in Shoreham who is still painting icons even though she's now in her eighties.

Our penultimate hut opens on 23rd and is the furthest west of all the huts involved in the beach hut advent calendar and is number 449.

Tonight we were back with the shepherds who haven't featured in our Christmas journey since beach hut 6 although their sheep did make an appearance on day 14.

Karen had combined the delight of the shepherds at Bethlehem on that first Christmas with the old saying that we use to help us predict the weather - 'red sky at night, shepherds delight'. It's nice to think that the sky above the stable that night could have reflected their joy at this happy event as well as sparkling with the choirs of angels.

The hut was a little mysterious tonight as there were black drapes hanging down at the front but peeping through these could be seen an idyllic little scene with the shepherds staring up at the red sky alongside a giant (to them) storybook of the Christmas event.

Above this, on the front of the hut was a herald angel, guiding the shepherds to the manger.

The piece that we filmed with the BBC wasn't on broadcast on Wednesday and we're told it's being held over for Christmas Day and will be on BBC Breakfast sometime between 8am and 9am.

In the meantime, make a note of our next hut which is number 374.