We held the Little Rainbows Christmas Party on Monday 15th December at St John’s Church Itchen Abbas.  We simply would not be able to hold our weekly toddlers group if it had not been for the reordering changes made to St John’s during the last vacancy which now has a carpet and chairs and some excellent heating and an excellent kitchen and loo…. rather than pews and a cold stone floor.  We are very grateful to our verger Vernon Tottle and his wife Arminel who very kindly move the chairs around for us in advance of, and after, every session.

On most Little Rainbows mornings, the children and their parents or nannies arrive at about 10am and play with the toys which are laid out on the floor and chat.  We have a wonderful team of coffee and cake makers who support us during the year and make coffee and tea (and often biscuits or cake) for us every Monday morning.   The parents (mainly mums) chat over their coffee and the children play until snack time at about 1040.  Then to the sound of ‘wiggle, wiggle, wiggle – freeze’ the dancing begins and whoever is leading the session (generally one of the two curates) then gets the children and their parents dancing.  Then there is a story based on a Biblical theme and after that a brief prayer.

However our Christmas session was a little different.  We had asked as many of the children as possible to arrive dressed for a nativity tableau and they did!

We had shepherds and sheep and angels – no kings on this occasion.  And we had one wonderful very calm Jesus willing (or at least not objecting) to lie in a bed of straw.  Most of our children are 2-4 and so a little confused as to what was going on, so it was fairly chaotic but a lot of fun.

After our little play the children all sat down to a totally delicious (rather early) lunch…

Our children mainly come from Itchen Valley but also from some of the surrounding villages.  If you would like to join us please contact Alex or Rebecca through the contact details page.

Revd Alex Pease