Cookstown Hub gets into spirit of Christmas with carol service, live nativity and prayer tree

As well as Carols by Candlelight in conjunction with Copelands on Friday, the brains behind the community centre - Carol Doey - will tread the Burnavon's boards in her annual partnership with Jimmy Cowan for Carols & Jimmy's Christmas Cracker.

Neither event is one to be missed, and both are sure to foster a bit of Christmas spirit.

But Carol told the Mail that the audience are in for a treat at the Hub's Christmas opener this Friday night, because as well as an evening filled with the Christmas songs we all know and love, clips from that Christmas film featuring a truce between soldiers during WWI will also play its part.

And a very talented singer from Cookstown High School - Zoe Seymour - will be their to regale the audience with Silent Night in German.

Carols by Candlelight takes place on December 2, while Carol & Jimmy's Christmas Cracker is on December 9 and the proceeds from tickets will go to helping the Hub put on an even better Christmas Day dinner this year.

As well as these events, the Hub has also planned a live nativity (and we have the Parade Commission documents to prove it) when Mary, Joseph, their donkey and three wise men on 'camels' make their way through Cookstown on Wednesday, December 7.

Following an event to thanks volunteers and all those who use the Hub last night, a prayer tree has also been installed outside the centre, where anyone who wants to, can leave a thought, wish, prayer or request to God or another deity... and when Christmas is over, a generous local vicar will take them away and pray over them all.

"I am excited about our prayer tree," said Carol.

"It will be outside the Hub from tomorrow, and please feel feel to post your desire, wish or thanks into one of the little boxes... and I want you to know that your requests will be prayed for.

"It's a good feeling of release when you write it down, let it go and trust in a positive outcome... I have never been let down by God, he knows exactly what I need, sometimes it's not what I want, but everything works out just right."