Category Archives: Christmas

Charity Fundraising, Christmas

St Mary’s Crib Festival: Friday 8th – Saturday 9th December

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Come and see nativity crib scenes of all shapes and sizes in this fabulous exhibition of cribs belonging to Redbourn residents.

  • Crib scenes from Uganda, Cuba, Czech Republic, Thailand and Tanzania
  • Cribs made from crochet, Duplo, chess pieces and beer bottles
  • Cribs homemade in the 1960s and made specially for the Festival
  • Cribs with special sentimental stories behind them

Join in our Community Art project by adding an angel to our heavenly host. Make a sheep to join the flock. Buy beautiful Christmas gifts from our Charity Gift Stall. Refreshments served all day in the Transept.

Admission free, donations appreciated towards our Charity of the Year, Level Trust Luton.

It’s not too late to lend us or make a crib to exhibit: Register a Crib for the Festival

And we are still very much in need of volunteer stewards to keep the cribs safe over the weekend – please do consider if you can sign up for a slot: Sign up to Volunteer as a Steward

Exhibition of Cribs

  • Friday 8th December, 4.00 – 8.00pm
  • Saturday 9th December, 10.00am – 4.00pm

Over 50 cribs will be on display. Get involved in the nativity dressing up zone and craft zone. Pause for tea, coffee and cake in the Transept. Buy beautiful Christmas gifts at the Charity Stall.

Community Carol Singing

  • Friday 8th December, St Mary’s Church
  • Hot dogs and bar open from 4.00 – 8.00pm
  • Carol Singing between 5.00 – 7.00pm

Come and join us round the piano for a great big community carol sing.

Call out your carol requests… dust off your descants… bring all the family for some festive fun hosted by Revd Rachel, Redbourn’s brand-new vicar! Our singing will be led by professional carol singer and pianist, Damian and Micheila.

Community Art: ‘On Angels Wings’

We would love to have a heavenly host of angels made by the people of Redbourn flying over the church for the whole season of Christmas.

Come along and add your angel… maybe write inside the name of someone you’ll miss this Christmas, a prayer, a hope or anything you like.

Pick up a blank angel from St Mary’s, or just come along to the Crib Festival to make one and add it to the crowd!

Activities for all the family

  • Nativity dressing up zone with stable scene
  • Craft zone – make a sheep to add to our flock
  • Activity sheet for the Crib Exhibition – can you be a crib detective?
  • Add an angel to our Community Art project
  • Hot dogs and carol singing at our Big Community Carol Sing

Our Charity: Level Trust, Luton

All proceeds from the weekend will be for our St Mary’s Charity of the Year, Level Trust Luton.

The charity supports families to overcome the cost of education – including school uniforms, winter coats, shoes, books, sports and IT equipment.

Their aim is that all children in Luton have the chance to love learning. 45% of children in Luton live in poverty – that’s over 26,600 children.

Make a donation to Level Trust, Luton

Charity Fundraising, Christmas

St Mary’s Christmas Crib Festival – we need you!

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We are organising a St Mary’s Crib Festival this Christmas, from Friday 8th – Sunday 10th December, and we need your help!

We want this to be a really big event for the village and to raise lots of money for our Charity of the Year, Level Trust Luton – so have some exciting plans for the weekend which are outlined below.

Do you have a crib you could lend us for the exhibition, or could you make a crib to display?  Or are you able to help us out in some way over the weekend?

– Lend us a crib: Does it have a special story for you… an old family crib? Perhaps is it from another country or made from something unusual? Maybe someone made it for you… or you just love it?

– Make a crib: It could be made of wool, fabric, wood, toilet rolls, clay or play-dough, cake, Lego, wire, paper, bread, Minecraft, biscuits, or absolutely anything else you can think of!

click here to register a crib

– Help us out: We would be grateful for offers of help with stewarding, serving refreshments, selling raffle tickets and many more jobs over the festival weekend and in the weeks beforehand.  If you would be interested in getting involved please email stmarys@stmarysredbourn.org

The Crib Festival will include:

Friday 8th December

  • Exhibition open 4pm – 7pm
  • Community Carol Singing from 5pm – 7pm
  • Hot Dogs served and bar open from 5pm – 7pm

Saturday 9th December

  • Exhibition open 10am – 4pm
  • Add your own angel to our community art installation
  • Make a sheep to join our flock
  • Nativity dressing up zone (for children and grown-ups!)
  • Refreshments served all day

Sunday 10th December

  • Exhibition open after our usual Sunday services until 12pm

Please put the dates in your diary, consider lending or making us a crib, and help us to spread the word about this exciting event for the whole community.

Advent, Christmas

Christmas at St Mary’s 2022

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All are welcome to join us for these special services as we celebrate again the gift of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to us this Christmas.

Leading up to Christmas, St Mary’s will continue to provide public worship every weekday: Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer (9:30am and 5:00pm Monday to Friday), as well as our Holy Eucharist on a Wednesday evening at 7:30pm and various other special services. We will also be adding Compline, a short service taken from the ancient monastic tradition, on Tuesdays at 9:00pm (6th, 13th, 20th) – a gentle, quiet way to end the day.

Here are a few highlights as we move towards and keep our celebration of Christmas:

Sunday 4th December, 4.00 pm                      

Christingle Service

Come and join us for this ever popular and enjoyable service for people of all ages at this time of year.  The ‘Christingle’, is a lighted candle mounted in an orange.  They are given out in the service in exchange for donations made in envelopes or ‘purses’ for the work of The Children’s Society. 

The Christingles are then lit, reminding us that Jesus is the light of the world and shines in the darkest parts of our world.  Donations raised at our Christingle year after year enable The Children’s Society to work with thousands of children in this country who face life’s harshest challenges – children who may find themselves sleeping rough this winter; fleeing conflict and war; caught in a cycle of crime; or marginalised due to a disability.  We are delighted to welcome children from our schools and uniformed groups in Redbourn to raise money for these needy children.

Sunday 11th December, 5.00 pm                      

The Lights of Love Service

Christmas can be a time when we’re all too aware of our bereavements and those we miss.  We offer this short reflective service as a chance to remember in prayer those whom we love but see no longer, those we’ll miss at Christmas. 

At the end of the service we process outside and light up our Lights of Love, festooned in a churchyard fir tree.  These lights are in memory of loved ones whom we wish to remember at this time of year. Envelopes, if you want to sponsor a light, can be found in our church now.

Thursday 15th December, drinks at 6.00pm, carols from 8.00pm                      

Beer & Carols at The Cricketers

Warm up your voices and dust off your descants…. the unmissable Beer & Carols is back!

Hosted by the Cricketers of Redbourn, compèred by Rod & Louise McPhee, with David Beaman on piano, this promises to be a fabulous evening, as always.

Sunday 18th December, 7.00 pm                      

Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols

Another musical offering in the run up to Christmas is the lovely Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.  In this service we hear a sequence of bible readings interspersed with choir items and carols for all to sing – making this one of the quintessential services of the Christmas period and certainly one not to be missed. 

Many of the organisations and institutions in Redbourn are represented in the reading of the Lessons – it really is a carol service for everyone to enjoy, it’s free and no tickets are needed.  Do come along and bring family, friends and neighbours.

Christmas Eve, Saturday 24th December

Candlelit Crib Services, 3.30 pm and 4.30 pm    

One of the highlights of Christmas is without doubt witnessing the enjoyment and excitement through young people, and our Crib Service on Christmas Eve will be a delight for all children young, and not so young!  

We invite all children to come in costume, dressed up as characters from the Christmas story to play their part as we tell again the story of the First Christmas with singing and prayer.  We gather at our Crib to witness the characters of the nativity story arriving to visit the baby Jesus lying in the manger.

Christmas Eve, Saturday 24th December

The First Eucharist of Christmas, Midnight Mass 11.30pm

This service, often known as Midnight Mass, is an absolute gem and is really the first of the main Christmas services.  We gather at 11.30 pm to celebrate the Christmas story of God coming among us in the birth of Jesus.

This is a communion service with the blessing of our special crib, and includes lovely carols for us all to sing.  Whether you come to St Mary’s regularly or not – you can be assured of a warm welcome – for you and your family and friends.

Christmas Day, Saturday 25th December

Holy Communion, 8.00 am          

We offer two services on Christmas morning, the first being the traditional Communion service using The Book of Common Prayer.

All Age Eucharist, 10.00 am        

Our main service on Christmas morning is a Eucharist, where God’s people, young and old, gather together to celebrate the joy of Christmas. We will sing well-known carols and hear a sermon for all ages. Come and mark the true meaning of Christmas with us at St Mary’s this year.