what is christingle?

[ssd]

is this a new thing?

From the Moravian church originally.

Oop it's been said, sorry!

It’s the one service a year (apart from school nativity tha the also do in the church) that we attend. Churches would get their attendance rocket if they always gave children an opportunity to play with fire and sweets safe in the knowledge that their parents can’t raise their voices to tell them off.

Ours were apples when I was little.

I thought it had died out.

We did it in 1980s C of E school - oranges with cocktail stick full of dolly mixture and cloves and rasins stuffedin orange center I think it was before Christmas as well but in December.

My children did attend a C of E school and was regually at the nearby associated church but never did this.

Aren't the cloves supposed to be the Crucifixion nails?

I took my kids to a Christingle service when they were pretty young. They were all given a Christingle and then paraded around the church with them in a circle. I could barely watch as they both scoffed the dolly mixtures and then spent the next 20 minutes narrowly avoiding gouging each other's eyes out on the cocktail sticks and setting fire to their fringes with the candles. But other than that it was very festive and fun! (Maybe the sense of imminent danger made it feel more exciting.)

I went to Catholic church in Canada. Christingle is the strangest thing I've ever heard of.

I once attended a Christingle service that was themed around Doctor Who. There were Cybermen.

My mother, being English, used to attend the local Scottish Episcopalian Church when we came home to Scotland where I first came across Christingle. I'd been to a fairly high CoE school in England and never came across it.

I went to a Christingle service in the local cathedral when I was in primary school. I loved the smell of the cloves & oranges.

Extra excitement too when someone set fire to the long hair of the girl in front - all well, fortunately!

Naked flames & small children It was the 1970s though

We do it in Wales as well

christkingle is a bastardised version of Christkindl. Christkindl in return is a belief in Germany and other countries around (Czech Republic, Slovakia etc.) that it's the baby Jesus Christ bringing presents to children for Christmas

You've confused Christingle with Kris Kindle!

A Christingle is "Christs Light" and is used to celebrate Jesus Christ as the "Light of the World". Used primarily for Advent and Christmas, it is also used for Epiphany.