When I Think of Christmas . . .
A Christmas assembly based on the Nativity
by Alexandra Palmer
Suitable for Whole School (Pri)
Aims
To consider four aspects of Christmas: sending messages, going on journeys, receiving visitors and exchanging Christmas presents.
Preparation and materials
- You will need the PowerPoint slides that accompany this assembly (When I Think of Christmas...) and the means to display them.
- Have available three wrapped Christmas presents such as a football, a pair of socks and a box of chocolates.
- Optional: in the ‘Assembly’, Step 3, you may wish to arrange for three children to read out pre-written sentences about journeys that they’ve made to see relatives at Christmas. (The children could describe how they felt during the journey, or when they arrived and saw their relatives.)
- Optional: in the ‘Assembly’, Step 4, you may wish to arrange for three children to read out pre-written sentences about what they would like Father Christmas to bring them.
Assembly
- Show Slide 1.
Start off by saying to the children, ‘When I say the word “Christmas”, what do you think of?’
Listen to a range of responses. - Explain that you are going to consider four major aspects of Christmas.
Show Slide 2.
When I think of Christmas, I think of sending messages.
Ask the children to raise their hand if they have sent or received Christmas cards this year. Then, suggest other ways of sending messages at Christmas, such as emails, texts and social media messages. - Show Slide 3.
When I think of Christmas, I think of going on a journey.
Ask the children to raise their hand if they have ever gone on a journey at Christmas to visit relatives like grandparents, aunts or uncles.
Optional: ask the three children who have prepared sentences about journeys that they’ve made to see relatives at Christmas to read them out loud. - When I think of Christmas, I think of having visitors.
Ask the children to raise their hand if they have ever had visitors to their homes at Christmas.
Ask the children, ‘Who would you like to visit you on Christmas Eve?’
Listen to a range of responses.
Show Slide 4.
Optional: ask the three children who have prepared sentences about what they would like Father Christmas to bring them to read them out loud.
- Show Slide 5.
When I think of Christmas, I think of presents.
Give the wrapped Christmas presents to three children.
Ask the children to guess what each gift is. - A big part of Christmas is the story of the Nativity in the Bible. It contains all four of the aspects of Christmas that we’ve just talked about.
For example, lots of messages were sent, and they were delivered in different ways. - Ask the children, ‘What was the name of the angel who told Mary that she was going to have God’s son?’
Tell the children that it was the angel Gabriel who gave the news to Mary.
Show Slide 6.
When Mary heard the news, she was troubled because she wasn’t married.
Another message was delivered to Joseph, who was visited by an angel in a dream. The angel told Joseph to marry Mary and call the baby Jesus. In the Bible, God used angels to deliver important messages.
To communicate with the three wise men, God used a star to tell them that Jesus was about to be born. The wise men also used the star as an early form of satnav! - In the Nativity story, several people go on a journey.
Ask the children whether they can tell you who goes on a journey in the story.
Listen to a range of responses.
Show Slide 7.
Explain that Mary and Joseph had to go on a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that the Romans could count them.
The shepherds also had to make a journey: they travelled a short distance from the hills outside Bethlehem to the stable, where they visited baby Jesus.
The three wise men (also known as the three kings) had a very long journey from distant lands to Bethlehem.
After Jesus was born, Mary, Joseph and Jesus had to escape to Egypt because King Herod wanted to hurt baby Jesus. - Ask the children, ‘Who were the visitors in the Nativity story?’
Listen to a range of responses.
Show Slide 8.
Tell the children that there were two sets of visitors: the shepherds and the three wise men. - Ask the children, ‘What presents were given to baby Jesus?’
Listen to a range of responses.
Show Slide 9.
Explain that the three wise men gave presents of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold was a sign of Jesus being a king; frankincense was used in worship, so this gift signified that Jesus would be worshipped all over the world; and myrrh was a perfume that was used when people died, which meant that Jesus was going to have a special death.
Time for reflection
Ask the children, ‘When we think about Christmas, what present did God give us?’
Listen to a range of responses.
Show Slide 10.
The reason that we celebrate Christmas is because of the present that God gave us at Christmastime. Christians believe that God sent his son, Jesus, to earth to save humanity.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you that we can come together in our school today and think about Jesus’ birth.
Thank you for all the different ways in which we can send Christmas messages to one another.
Thank you for all the different ways in which we can go on a journey.
Please keep us safe if we go on journeys this Christmas.
When we have visitors in our homes during the holidays, let us make them feel welcome.
Thank you for the presents that we will receive, and for the ones that we will give to our family and friends.
Thank you for the present of your son, Jesus.
We pray that this Christmas, we can take time to remember why we celebrate Christmas.
Amen.
Song/music
‘Away in a manger’, available at: https://youtu.be/AnwO_0DrpCk (1.59 minutes long)
