Children's Christmas Program in Tarentum

On Sunday, Dec. 4, Central Presbyterian Church of Tarentum held its annual Children's Christmas Program with a Tureen Dinner. This was the wrap-up for the final unit of Grand Central Station, our midweek Christian education experience for elementary school age children.

During the week before the program volunteers had painted decorations for the walls to set the stage for the simple Christmas Pagaent the children would do.

Each of these graphics were taken from tiny images, a quarter inch high, at the bottom of some of the pages in the Bible Ventures Centers curriculum materials we had used.

They were enlarged on the photocopier, then placed on an opaque projector so that the designs could be traced and painted on much larger pieces of paper on the walls.

We placed the Nativity scene front and center.

And we reused a star made a number of years ago, now hanging in the middle of the room.

There were 45 children and adults who arrived for the Tureen Dinner. (For those of you who are not from Western Pennsylvania, a "Tureen Dinner" is what you might know as a "covered dish supper" or a "pot-luck supper". Interestingly enough, there was no tureen present that night.)

As the first part of the Christmas pagaent, all of the children became angels to fly around the room and bring the good news to the shepherds.

After changing into costumes, the children reappeared around the manger as kings, shepherds, sheep, and angels.

After the pagaent was over the children from Grand Central Station gave their families decorated stockings that each had a Christmas prayer inside.

Then, we sang a number of Christmas carols. Verne "Beaner" Bergstrom accompanied us on the piano for a number of them.

Eventually we had a visit from Santa Claus, who brought along some candy for each of the children.

File under : Central Presbyterian Church, Christmas, Tarentum