What is a Christingle Service???

[mixer]

Several people talk about Christingle service - what is this?

It explains it here

do you make your own candle (with an orange, red ribbon, etc) and take it to church or do you make them when you get there?

It depends on the church, they usually supply most, if not all. They might ask you to bring your own orange. When we had a Christingle at our church, we supplied everything, but some brought oranges just in case. We made ours in the service. At the Cathedral, they supplied them ready made.

it is a nice idea

Our local church gets the children in an hour or two early to make the Christingles.

I quite like the anti-health & safety aspect of it all. Usually spend the whole service making sure the DC's (5 & 3) don't lose their eyebrows.

Tis very pretty when they turn the church lights off.

All in favour of raising money for Children's charities but what is wrong with plain old advent.
Christingle - I thought is was some Hollywood film about Santa Claus/

I had a look around and read it was a tradition brought across from Germany in the 18th century. Apparently originally Moravian - protestant Bohemian (Czech) tradition

no idea if there is much truth in that, just stumbled upon it when I googled

It's not necessarily an advent service. We have one at Candlemas. It raises money for the Children's Society. Orange represents the world, candle the light of Christ, red ribbon blood of Christ, four sticks with sweets and fruits the fruits of the Earth from the four corners of the world. It is from Moravia.

It's a lovely service for children. We used to make a tradition of going then coming home and putting up the christmas tree.

Christingles happen at any point from Advent Sunday right through to Candlemas (2nd Feb). We have ours on Advent Sunday, and provide the already-made-up oranges with decoration etc (usually the Sunday-school prepare them that morning or the day before). I've known it for the last forty years, for raising money for the Children's Society and (usually) as a pre-Christmas service.