This year’s Christingle was amazing! It was very cold and frosty on Christmas Eve but the church was packed. As we walked up the church drive at about 6.15pm families were rushing by us worried that they wouldn’t get a seat. Rev. Sue got all the children in church (about 50 of them!) to do a nativity tableau. There were appropriate dressing up clothes in various parts of the church and children could go to which ever one they wanted to be – Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, wisemen. We had about a dozen Marys. As Sue told the story the children went up onto the stage, parents were taking photographs and it was really exciting – something I think they will all remember for a long time.
After the Nativity came the Christingle bit which Sue explained with the help of an enormous orange (rumour had it that it was Jane Britten dressed up). After that the children all went to the front to receive their unlit Christingles and then stand all around the church. Us adults were then given Christingles too and we also stood in the circle with the children. The candles were then lit, the electric lights turned off and we all sang Away in a Manger by candlelight – very moving.