St Mary's RC Ulverston

This morning I went to do our Christmas assembly at St Mary's in Ulverston.  Christmas had well and truly arrived at the school with all the children dressed in their Christmas jumpers.  After singing So Many Ways to Praise the Lord I talked about the time of year - I did ask the children about it first some said winter which is correct as December marks the start of winter.  I got the answer Advent from someone, I did point out to the children that I had been looking on their wall at a calendar of all the Christian holidays, Holy Days and festivals before the assembly started.  I explained that Advent is a time of getting ready and time of preparing for - Christmas.  I then asked about who in the Christmas story needed to get ready and prepare - straight away the answer the 3 wise men came back.  I went on to talk about the journey they needed to make in order to see Jesus, a journey that would have taken months and months as they lived so far away.  I asked if any of them had ever been on a long journey and what they needed to take for it.  This led me to tell the story of Baboushka which is a folk tale.  She missed out on the chance to see Jesus as she was far too busy doing stuff.  We can be like that too on the run up to Christmas and forget what it is all about.  So I encouraged the children to take time and stop and think about the things they are doing for Christmas and to remember why it is we celebrate in the first place.  To close we sang Rejoice with us and then said a short prayer.