Christmas cards
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Finding new ways to retell the mystery of the Christmas story is always a challenge. The following idea uses a selection of playing cards to retell the events surrounding the nativity.
On your marks
Once the first Christmas cards start appearing, you know that Advent and Christmas aren’t that far away. Most Christmas cards bring us good news, with greetings from people we often don’t manage to see from year to year but with whom we want to keep in touch. However, it’s interesting to note just how few Christmas cards nowadays draw their imagery from the Bible story of Christmas.
Cards appear in another format at Christmas too – namely, in card games that families still turn to when they get together. The following idea uses some cards from three packs of cards to tell the Christmas story. Because these ‘Christmas cards’ are telling the Bible story in an unexpected medium, this can perhaps be a way to recapture the wonder and miracle of what God did for us by becoming a baby in a manger.
Get set
You will need:
- an ordinary pack of playing cards
- two other packs – a mini pack of cards and a jumbo-sized one
Study the sequence of cards needed to tell the story from the pictures beside the text in the outline given below.
You might like to develop this whole idea further by using other cards to represent further aspects of the story such as the crowds in Bethlehem or by turning some cards face down to create buildings and scenery to go alongside the picture cards in the story.
Go!
Download the story outline here.
