St Peters

This morning Sarah and I went to do our final assembly of 2018 at St Peters.  We started by singing Be Happy then Sarah talked a little about why the children were so happy - It's Christmas we did get remined by one little boy just how many sleeps away it is.  After the song I showed the children a Christmas cracker and asked for two children to come out and help.  I explained that I was going to use the cracker to tell the story of Christmas.  To start with there is always a surprise inside the cracker which can remind us of the surprise that Mary had when she discovered that God was going to use her to give birth to his son Jesus.  Next I asked who likes loud bangs or who was scared of them I asked what else we get scared of - we had the dark, spiders and other things too. So as the children pulled the cracker and it make a small crack noise (I did ask the children to put their hands over their ears if they didn't like loud noise) I said could they imagine what it must of been like for some of the people in the Christmas story that got very frighten - I asked them who they thought that might be - the shepherds came the answer.  I explained that every time an angel is mentioned in the Bible it always says 'do not be afraid' so the shepherds seeing a host of angels must have been really scary.  Next we looked inside the cracker and found the hat - which is a crown so I asked who wears a crown - the queen and kings too came the reply.  I told the children that Jesus was and is the King of kings which means he is the king of everyone.  We removed the joke next as I told the joke I said that some times in crackers we get wise sayings as well - now in the Bible some wise people in the old testament foretold of the birth of Jesus hundreds of years before it happened.  Last of all we had the gift which reminds us of the gifts the wise men brought.  Who would have thought that a Christmas cracker could be used to tell the Christmas story I said as I recalled the different parts of the cracker. Sarah then talked about Jesus being the greatest gift of all and when we open our presents on Christmas morning we should not only say thank you to the person that gave us the present but say thank you to God for giving us Jesus - because with out Jesus there would be no Christmas.  To finish off we sang our Christmas song Rejoice with us.  To close off the assembly Sarah said a short prayer.