Christmas Presentation Ideas & Principles
Christmas is just around the corner. It’s a wonderful season, but not without its challenges for children’s ministers who want to find an original, creative and engaging way to present the well-known story of Christ’s birth.
Peter Tong has shared his excellent ideas in these digital resources: Creative Christmas Kids Talks (Vol 1), and Creative Christmas Kids Talks (Vol 2). I’d like to share three presentation outlines and the principles behind the creative and performance processes.
Presentation Outlines:
1. ‘The Frustrated Innkeeper’ (All-age service on Christmas Eve)
Big Idea: In Jesus, God is with us! Come and see!
A doorframe with a door and a bed is onstage. Jacob is the innkeeper in Bethlehem. He’s had an insanely busy day because of the influx of travellers caused by the Roman census, and he just wants to sleep. As he prepares to sleep, he complains to his wife that God has no idea what it’s like to work so hard, have such a sore back and to be so tired. He hangs the “No Vacancy” sign on the door and goes to sleep.
However, every time that he tries to sleep he is interrupted by loud noises from the door, to his increasing frustration: Joseph and Mary want a room for the night, Joseph wants hot water for his wife who’s giving birth, a baby screams, Joseph wants swaddling cloth, loud music shakes the night from the hills (he thinks that they’re probably teenagers), and finally shepherds want to see the baby - the special baby – God with skin!
In all this he deals with his wife who complains that she’s missing her beauty sleep, and couldn’t he try a bit harder to keep things down? As he goes to finally sleep, his wife finally realises what’s happened. She struggles to tell him … God knows what it’s like to be one of us. God is not far away - he’s around the back. Simply: God is with us. All you have to do is look! Jacob gets it! He invites them to take a look for themselves too.
2. ‘A Cracking Christmas’ (SRE Assembly)
Big Idea: The biggest Christmas that ever was when God did the biggest thing and entered the world as a tiny baby, who would fill heaven with billions of people!
This presentation contrasts massive and tiny visuals which reinforce the big idea.
The biggest Christmas Cracker ever is revealed. It’s about 10 feet long. With comedy, hearing and eye protection the presenter enlists the help of children to help open it. Fishing out the goodies from inside is tricky, and while the presenter’s head is inside the cracker it explodes. Finally, he fetches out a riddle, a crown (which is beautiful but only big enough to fit a baby), and a nappy?! The riddle reads “Which Christmas was the biggest Christmas ever?”.
The presenter uses a small nativity set to briefly tell the story of the first Christmas – of the birth of a tiny baby to an unknown couple in the middle of a huge migration of people. But this insignificant thing was the biggest thing which God had ever done – testified to by the host of angels (projected onto the screen and ceiling) announcing the arrival of the greatest king. The challenge for us who are in the middle of a huge season crammed with demands, is to take a little time to stop and recognise the first Christmas, when the God of the universe sent a tiny baby who will change our lives if we simply trust in him.
3: ‘Christmas Quiz’ (Carols presentation)
Big Idea: God gave us a gift of eternal life – we did nothing to earn it and did not deserve it – will we accept it?
This is a Christmas Game Show, complete with a cheesy presenter, game show music, sound effects for right and wrong answers, and scoreboard. The game is ‘How much do you know about Christmas?’ and it puts two genuine volunteers against one another: a small girl against a church minister, who clearly has a huge advantage. Both volunteers are not prepared for their roles in any way, which gives the presentation fresh, real reactions.
Each contestant takes turns to draw out a question from a bag, which the presenter asks them. However, every question which the girl freely selects is extremely easy, and she answers each one perfectly. And every question which the minister selects is ridiculously difficult (e.g. What is the first verse of the carol, “Silent Night” in German?). At the end of the competition, the girl scores 4 and the minister scores nothing.
Having earned her victory, she is presented with a generous prize to a great applause. But then the presenter gives the same prize to the minister. The assistant complains about this injustice. The award is not given as a prize, but as a gift. The minister takes it. Then a huge square gift is also opened – revealing a large cross and the words of John 3:16. But, like any gift, eternal life is not ours until we accept it.
Principles
1: Entertain before you explain.
Have you ever been at a Carols night, feeling sorry for the guy who’s doing the “Jesus talk” while everyone else is wishing that he’d get off the stage? He was probably delivering a sermon when no one wanted to listen. We can never presume that our audience is willing to listen to us, especially at Christmas, when there is so much competing for our audience’s attention. We need to earn their attention and keep it by engaging and entertaining them if we want people to leave remembering what we’ve said. In a real sense, what we do on stage at Christmas is a performance.
2: Creativity includes taking an existing idea and adapting it to your purpose.
Many think that creative people have original ideas all the time. It’s not true. Creativity is most often taking an existing idea and tweaking it. There is inspiration all around you.
“The Frustrated Innkeeper” was inspired years ago when I was shown a Christmas book for pre-schoolers called “What’s all the fuss?” More inspiration for dialogue and character came from the archetypal frustrated innkeeper: John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty from “Fawlty Towers.” Basil’s wife, Sybil, appears in the presentation too, as the innkeeper’s capable wife. There’s something very funny about a person who never gets what he wants because the world conspires against him.
Several years ago, a large retailer’s Christmas campaign, “The Biggest Christmas Ever” was inspiration for my “Cracking Christmas” presentation. A colleague suggested the giant cracker and the nappy, and I was able to build on the rest.
“A Christmas Quiz Show” is a favourite because it’s so funny. Every one of these presentations were created with a combination of ideas from other children’s ministers and brilliant minds. Nothing was completely original.
3: Creativity takes time.
Be patient. Only run with a presentation when you have something to say. I sat with the notion of “A Cracking Christmas” for several years before I found the right riddle, the right toy and crown to put in the cracker which would give me the right angle of the Christmas story. It often takes time for your subconscious to pull together all your research and thoughts into a clear idea. I was tempted to use this idea before the ideas coalesced, but I’m glad that I waited.
4: Quality takes time.
I’ve written many Christmas presentations quickly, but I couldn’t tell you what they were. They were largely forgettable. But others were produced more slowly, the big idea was simple and clear, the visuals were high quality, the scripts were sharpened and rehearsals polished the performance. And these presentations are the ones which I bring out again and again. A week of solid work serves me well for decades. Allow time for your ideas to crystalise, your script to be sharpened, your visuals to be produced, and your performance to be polished.
5: Make your message clear, creative, and concrete.
It takes a lot of work to make your big idea simple, but not simplistic. It starts by thinking deeply in the Scriptures and also about your audience. Finding the point of connection, or big question which is answered by the big idea is also important. Fortunately, there is so much going on for people at Christmas that there are lots of points of connection:
Can a present last forever? Does God know how hard Christmas is? What’s the biggest thing this Christmas? Are we there yet? Have you been good enough to earn your present?
6: Embrace conflict and humour.
Conflict drives a plot, and well-placed humour wins an audience. Both conflict and humour are faithful servants of effective presenters. Review your script and see how both conflict and humour can be exploited and heightened to make your message shine brighter.
In a “A Christmas Quiz Show”, the two contestants are the small girl and the minister of religion. He’s ultra-educated; she’s never been to school. He’s huge and she’s small. It’s set up to be a very unfair competition. And the audience is on the side of the young girl from the start. (We all like to see a tall poppy cut down!)
The conflict is obvious and is heightened if he senses the unfair nature of the competition. The bag is a standard magic prop and ensures that the minister always pulls out ridiculously difficult questions and the girl always gets incredibly easy ones. The comments from the presenter highlight the failure of the minister and the achievement of the girl (“Once again you answered incorrectly, so you score … nothing!”) Sound effects “BAH BAH” for an incorrect answer and a “BING” for a correct answer magnify the sense of failure or achievement. And all of this highlights that the girl absolutely deserves her prize because she WON IT, and the injustice when the same award is given to the minister who did NOTHING to deserve it. This provides a very natural segue to speak about the gift of Jesus – which we did not deserve.
Hopefully we will have face-to-face services at Christmas this year. Start thinking now about new ways to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.