Christmas at your church... what have they done that was great (or rubbish)

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We are planning the whole Christmas event for the local church.

Cards, banners, carol services... what else can we do? Any suggestions - a church in Arizona had tonnes of snow brought in for the kids (no budget for that sadlt!)

Are you talking about outreach into your community?

We have a children's craft afternoon several weeks before Christmas for which we send invitations to local primary schools. We do an open air nativity, complete with live animals - the local shoppers can't fail to miss it. We have our own cafe on the High Street where we serve up free food throughout the Christmas season including a full on Christmas lunch.

In church itself, we have a nativity service and Carol service on the Sunday before Christmas. A crib service and Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve, then a family service on Christmas morning.

We make up cards with all the activities to pass out.

WE have a christingle service every christmas eve - the money raised goes to the childrens society.

It is a lovely service, children from the church do readings and younger ones help assemble a nativity scene. After the readings (which have carols inbetween) all the children are invited to sit around a christmas tree where the Vicar tells them a story and then each child gets a christingle to take home.

I work for the church so just looking for something new to do! There is loads of movement in this area and christas is a nice time for the 'once a year'ers to come and join in. We have the most amazing carol concert!

The crib service is always a big deal at my church. Children come dressed up as a character from the nativity story and we have spare costumes and put on a scratch nativity.

We have a candle lit carol service which is standing room only (350ish people) and a lunch time carol service for those working in the town.

We've had some superb parties. Some involved skits with people dressing up as various pop stars, celebs, etc, puppet shows, daft games - chubby bunnies on the stage, stand on your chair if ... (various embarrassing admissions), quizzes, etc. There was a cabaret one year with people doing their party pieces. Secret Santa for the adults and Santa for the kids. Everyone brings food, etc. We always have a candle lit carol service (although fairly non-traditional church), with mince pies and mulled wine after which is great for inviting family and friends to and usually the local mayor as well. We've also done a scratch nativity in the Sunday morning closest to Christmas.

The last crib service had the shepherds playing star wars with their light sabres crooks.

We've done crib services with different themes that have worked really well - Strictly come Christmas, the Xmas Factor etc - lots of participation from the congregation, kids dressing up, lots of fun, party at the end etc etc.

The more sombre carol services can be lovely too.

We're in church planting early stages so don;t have a building, last year we did a big carol sing along in the local pub which was brilliant, then around the community, this year we're doing one in the school hall, possibly a christingle type one as this always goes down well.