Christmas Eve at Blackwood Uniting Church was an Australian-themed nativity called "Christmas in the Shed," named after an album and songbook by the same name compiled by Adelaide singer-songwriter Leigh Newton. Leigh was our special guest singer and storyteller, backed by a band of locals and friends, with locals involved as actors and crew. I put together the program from a bunch of sources. Apart from two carols and "Gloria," the music came from the books/albums "Christmas in the Scrub" and "Christmas in the Shed" compiled by Leigh, all available from Willow Publishing.
Photos were mainly from flickr.com on Creative Commons licence plus some of my own. (For example, earch at Flickr on "Australian night sky stars" and then refine the search by choosing "All Creative Commons" - here's the results page.)
Here are the photographers whose work we used with acknowledgement: Indigo Sky Photography, David Molloy, Wayne England, John Tann, Mark DeSouza, Rich Hoeg, Georgie Sharp, Tom Burke, Steve Bittinger, Pete Lytwyniuk, Klaus, Zweer de Bruin, Elizabeth Donoghue, Michael Theis, Trevor Dobson, Matt Brand, Ron Bennetts, Geoff Whalan, Dylan Fogarty-MacDonald
I used a couple of videos from Youtube after contacting the authors for permission.
We printed a bunch of animal masks and stuck them on popsticks - from Sparklebox also here and some other places on the WWW. Search on "animal masks" and you'lll probably find what you want. Masks were given out mainly to children as they arrived. We also had some nativity dressups that they could wear if they wished.
I also printed the following names and put them on seats - TRUCKS, SHEEP, DINGO, DONKEY, KOOKABURRA, COCKATOO, STAR, KANGAROO, COW, CHICKENS. There were about 15 of each and we put them on seats in groups, not randomly (better for participation.)
Here's the script with some links.
