Interactive Christmas 2015

Rosefield Uniting Church's fifth Interactive Christmas event was held yesterday on a scorching 41 degree day in Adelaide. The extreme heat certainly reduced attendance, particularly of families with pre-schoolers, but it was still a great evening. We have a spectacular group of helpers who come out every year for this event. 

For the second year we tried to have the first half-hour for families with young children, catering for our Playgroup and Mainly Music families. Celia did a great job. We had a great band and a humorous drama. But families with older kids turned up for this session, so we'll rejig it a bit it for next time.

Here's how the program went. Copy of setup here -  Download PROGRAM_SETUP_2015 PDF.

Here is a copy of the Map handout showing the location of the activities -  Download Program Handout Map 2015 PDF and the Room signs -  Download Room Posters 2015 PDF

1. Arrival Activity - Angel Christmas

We had a bunch of paper mache angels and provided a range of ways to decorate them with clothing, hair, facial features etc.

Here we also gave each family a paper bag to collect their stuff in, and their copy of the map.

2. Mary Christmas

People come from the arrival activity into the church for a session which opens up the story with media, music and drama. As well as the Mainly Music items for young children we had 

• a short video clip from "The Nativity" movie setting the scene
• a drama about 2 angels visiting Mary with a special announcement -  Download Drama-Angels_with_a_G (PDF)
• music from guest band Sevenfold, including Malcolm Gordon's lovely "Hey, Mary", Marc Cohn's "Baby King" and Colin Buchanan's "Angels Singing Glory"

 

Then we had a whole bunch of activities that people could explore at their leisure.

3. Crafty Christmas

Several different art and craft activities, including making a decorated candle gift box, making Christmas wreaths, and other stuff.

4. Clay Christmas

We provided some Christmassy cookie cutters but encouraged people to make their own reminder of the Christmas story

5. Face Painting

We've decided to let kids ask for what they want rather than try to limit it to a Christmas theme...

6. Photo Christmas

Once again we had a photo booth where people of any age can dress up in a nativity and have their photo taken. We email them the photos afterward. I really like doing this as it becomes a family memento but it is also about learning who was in the story.

7. Tasty Christmas

Making edible Christmas trees... yeah, I know. But we did have fruit!

8. Musical Christmas

We had a music studio with 3 options.

a. a fruit salad keyboard using a Makey Makey connected to a laptop running Reason. Touch each piece of fruit and it plays a note. We had music for "Silent Night" with each piece of fruit numbered. 

My daughter also bought her loop pedal and they were making up looped vocal percussion to go with this.

b. Rap a Christmas carol using the neat Autorap mobile app. We supplied the words of the carols.

c. A Vocoder (microphone into laptop running Reason) which people could use to 'voice' Christmas carols. 

9. Dark Christmas

This was a darkened room with 2 parts to it. People were given a torch as they entered.

a. Christmas art and decorations

b. a reflection on refugees and people for whom Christmas would not be a happy time

• a quote from Matthew 2:13-15 - Escape to Egypt -  Download Matthew 2 PDF
• a wall of images and stories about refugees from Magnus Wenmann
• quote from Isaiah 9:2-7 Download Matthew 2 -  Download Isaiah 9 PDF
• looping movie scene from the film "Children of Men" of the newborn baby stopping the war
• looping movie from "The Nativity Story" of Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem with "Everybody Hurts" by REM - Belkin hub and headphones
• A brief reflection on "Blue Christmas" and an invitation to take a Blue Star and hang it on the Christmas tree at home -  Download Blue Christmas (PDF)

 

10. Story Christmas

A tent with fairy lights, coloured fabrics, cushions, torches and Christmas story books. And an electric campfire outside. It looks wonderful, but it's the second time that we've done it and what we really need is a storyteller in there rather than books.

11. Play Christmas

We had several activities for families with younger children - a babies mat, glitter play dough with cookie cutters, sand tray with play figures, and painting. 

12. Silent Night

I love being able to say that we've been running this event for 5 years and for the THIRD time the same family from nearby church has provided the baby Jesus for us - all girls. Lucy and Mark are awesome and we're so glad that they have shared so willingly with us. We have a 'stable', and this time, the host was dressed as an angel, and she said this:  Download Reflection in the Stable PDF. As people left they were handed a laminated blessing (Download Christmas blessings   Download Take Home Blessing)  and an original design take-home nativity ornament.

So that's how it went and I'm already thinking about how to push it in several different directions next time.

 

Comments

[Nicole]

You could approach the godly play network for a storyteller for your tent

[craigmitchell]

Thanks Nicole. I know Godly Play. That's a helpful idea. We would need to change the setting, for a few reasons. Let me think about it.