a satsuma, a candle, two raisins, a sweet, 4 cocktail sticks and a peanut...what?

[Kelly1978]

DD went to church today with the school, somethign called a christingle?? Anyway, she has come home with the above items in a bag, and is on about putting the candle in the satsuma, and gluing on the sweet and raisins. She then is supposed to light the candle everyday. I'm totally confused. Any idea what she is on about or what it all means?

So what was the peanut for?!

I remember having a christingle service at my primary school and that was 18 years ago.

Hmmm, so I just bought all the ingredients for my kids to make one each, but I had a terrible time trying to figure out how to pronounce it. Would you say Chris-Tingle, or Cry-stingle??
Hmmm, am very confused, but I am a sucker for traditional and kid friendly stuff to do

I used to go as a child,still remeber it and looked forward to my sweet orange much more than my presents.....,when is the service?
can anyone turn up and how do i go about going?sure dd would love it too..

It's usually at the beginning of advent I think, but you'd have to ask your local vicar if they do one, and if so when. It may be advertised outside the church, or in the local paper.

and just turn up!

thank you xx

expat dd pronounces it chris - tingle, so I guess that is right.
Would you believe it, a diagram and instructions turned up today on the floor near the shoes. dd must have pulled it out.

It says:

candle = light of christ
sultanas = grape, gift of the fields
sweets = gift from the family
peanut = gift from the earth
one stick is empty = children who are hungry and lonely
orange = earth
ribbon = jesus love around the earth

and it says it originated in the Moravian church in 1747, so a very old tradition.

Never heard of this but sounds like fun to do.

dd1 came home from playgroup with an orange studded with cloves and a loop of foil round but I think that was just a decoration.

we aren't xtian, so dd ate the orange and the candle went in the kitchen drawer.

So pleased to find this thread. My dh has been convinved that I had made this service up!

We had Christingle services when I was at primary school (CofE) which was 20+ years ago and my kids are now doing the same and absolutely love it.

It really is a nice service and joins one of the many "stories' covered during the year, including diwali etc. The fact that so many of us have posted about it means that we must have remembered and therefore it works (even if I couldn't remember all of the aspects and we definitely didn't have peanuts)

christingle is about burning your fingers in the melting wax whilst singing carols in the dark in church, willing the six/eight verses of whatever carol you're on to be over so that you can blow out the candle and soothe your fingers.