Christingle - ideas for activities

[NicMac]

Hello Everyone
I am organising the Sunday Club activities for our local Anglican Church for Christingle. I wondered if any of you had ideas about how I can best engage the children and get them to realise Christmas is not just about presents. A tall order I know but do any of you have experience? Many thanks NicMac

Christmas is about presents - Jesus was the first Christmas present.
Apart form that I remember being very impressed/scared when at our first Sunday in new church they did make a Christingle as a congregation participation activity in the sermon!
What age group are you doing the activities for? Discussing the meaning of the parts of the Christingle can start some interesting ideas!

You could have a look on the Children's society website, maybe do some fundraising for them. Helping other children not as fortunate as they are may give them a good focus...

www.childrenssociety.org.uk/get+involved/christingle

Hello again thanks for your messages and links. The group will be aged from 3 - 8 years. I will look into talking about children not as fortunate as them, and I love the idea of Jesus being the first christmas present. Thanks again, will let you knwo how we get on

Are you actually having a service?

We have a nice one with contributions from Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, we form a circle round the church and light candles and then we turn out the lights and sing.
The readings are all from the Childrens' Soc website as linked by MaryBS and we pray for children around the world
(It helps that one of our parish charities is an orphanage in Zambia and we also support a mission in Lima, both helping destitute babies and children through to street teens).
We bring the Childrens' Soc tubes full of pennies to raise funds.
The themes are a little from many can really help, and small lights in the darkness

Scripture Union produce two great rescource books - Christmas Wrapped Up and More Christmas Wrapped Up

Both books are crammed full of ideas for Christmas services, children's talks, assemblies etc and include dramas, games, crafts etc etc

Fantastic resources and well worth a look.