Telling the Christmas story in two different contexts – for children and in a nursing home

An Anglican pastor’s wife in country Australia volunteered herself to do the last playgroup talk for the year at Christmas. Many churches in Australia will have a weekly playgroup where parents and children can come for craft, playing, snacks and music. This is one activity where non-Christians are more willing to come.

The group was quite large with about forty mothers and children and the majority of them were non-church members. The challenge is to tell a story suitable for two to three year-old children but also hopefully allowing their parents to listen in.

Ruth decided to tell the story from Luke 2:6-20 about the shepherds and to experiment with using some objects to help her tell the story.

She started with a map saying, “This is where we live and I’m going to tell a real story that happened here (pointed to Israel).”

She used simple props like a black sheet of paper to represent the darkness of the night. As she told the story she added a picture of a sheep and an angel. When she came to “the shepherds went off to find the baby they’d been told about who would be wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger”, she’d prepared her newborn son wrapped up and lying in a cradle and obligingly asleep.

The story seemed to go well and one of the church ladies asked if she’d do the same story at a local nursing home. The old people loved it especially having a live baby there for them to hold and look at.

Ruth commented, “Having to learn the story with all its details, instead of a summary, made me think much more about Christmas and the message of God coming as a baby. I was the one who got the most out of the story.”