Last night our parish held its annual Christmas Carols by Candle light. Actually the candles were citronella to keep away the mosquitos, and the candles were torches (flashlights). Various groups in the parish took turns singing. A children's nativity play was also planned, but on Tuesday our homeschooling group received an urgent phone call asking if we could help. The play hadn't actually been organised. Quickly the homeschooling families had a rehearsal on Wednesday and planned a quick nativity play based on a Golden Book someone had.
Before the activities began, we arrived early and all donned costumes and practiced in the gardens at the side. The first photo is of four little girls who were the angels that appeared to the shepherds. Little Elizabeth watched me whilst the rest paid attention to her sister reading the story, waiting for their cue. Our boys were the three wise men with their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. James did his best to look wise! The children did a very good job and we are glad we were able to help at such short notice.
At the last moment Rose decided she wanted to join so she became a sort of angel looking very pretty in a white frock. Whilst we were waiting she noticed lovely little stones and dirt on the pavement so naturally started playing with them. Who cares about being dressed in white when dirt beckons! Towards the end of the night the children were able to go back on stage and sing some lovely Christmas Carols. When they were deciding which carols to sing, Ariel and Eric mentioned the ones they knew from their time with the children's choir in our US parish.
These ended up being the ones chosen, even singing the first verse of Silent Night in German, as they practiced in the US. This photo was taken without a flash - just extended shutter exposure - and worked very nicely. All in all it was a lovely way to begin the Christmas preparations in this season of Advent. The children are getting more excited as each candle is lit on the Advent Wreath, meaning Christmas is another week closer. Once it gets to Christmas Eve we will be putting up our tree and the children should awake to a house transformed. Then it is compulsory celebrations of the birth of Jesus for the next 12 days of Christmas until Epiphany. Mmmm. Christmas celebrations. Yum.
2 comments:
I've got Annie (age 3) on my lap and first thing she said upon seeing the pictures of the girls was, "Oh, I wanted to be in that!"
The pics do look magical; nothing better than Christmas magic. : )
It was fun. We are going to do a Nativity play using the same one I created last year. I think it is a good Christmas Tradition to remember the reason for the season. (And it's fun for the children and really cute for the family and friends watching!)
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