Christingle

Today was the last day of the school as they broke up for Christmas! Lots of excitment from the kids!

I spent some of the afteroon making Christingles for the church service which is part of the school.

It brought back a lot of memories because I used to take my Christingle up to the church when I was at that same school years ago! When I got home, I rummaged through the old videos that we have! Yes videos! I was looking for my old school christmas play of 1995 which was a year after having my first implant! thats how old it is! haha With most of our generation using DVD nowdays, I spent this evening transferring the video to a dvd so I can keep it forever! It shows how much the junior school has changed in recent years! First thing I noticed on the video was that the school play of 1995 was that the play included ALL the classes in one play on a night with all parents in the hall rather than these days with health and safety being an issue, it was only two classes each doing seperate plays on dfferent days. It seems a lifetime away from the time when I was there and you would stay behind in the class after school and have fun getting all your christmas costumes on and getting all excited about the up coming play on the evening with christmas spirit in every class!!

Ah the old days! I feel old and I'm only 23!

If you are not clear on what Christingle is, it's a symbolic object that you hold for a christmas church service and I and some of the kids have been making some of these this afternoon but with raisins and dolly mixture!! We also had a ittle christmas assembly where sang some christmas hymns. There were candles all around the assmebly hall and in the dark, it was a very touching scene when all the kids were singing.

The Christingle consists of:

• The orange is round like the world
• The candle stands tall and straight and gives light in the dark like the love of God.
  
• The red ribbon goes all around the 'world' and is a symbol of the blood Jesus shed when he died for us.
  
• The four sticks point in all directions and symbolise North, South, East and West - they also represent the four seasons.
  
• The fruit and nuts (or sometimes sweets!) represent the fruits of the earth, nurtured by the sunshine and the rain.

The school is church of England so they have services and do hymns in the morning when they have an assembly. The only thing I dont miss about Christingle is that we had to walk up a loonnnnnng uphill path up to the church in the freezing cold carriyng our oranges! I like the fact that they are still tradtional and is a christian junior school!

I don't go back til after January now! Really looking forward to Christmas Eve now to see my mates! It's going to be great seeingthem again as I have'nt seen some of them for months although we are all best friends and speak online! We all have our own things going on so Christmas is always good for an annual group meet as we are all back in our home town!

Hope you all have a good Christmas too!! it's not long now!! x