Christmas trails round up

Churches across the diocese are planning Christmas trails to spread some comfort and joy in their local communities. Our churches are at the heart of our communities and they are determined that this year Christmas won’t be cancelled. We bring you the Christmas trails from across the Diocese. If you have a trail to add to our collection, contact Katherine.

 

Gloucester

St Catharine’s Church Gloucester is placing painted pebbles through the parish with nativity characters on so that they can encourage people to be busy #FindingJesus over the Advent period.

There will be four advent windows in a Kingsholm trail, linking to a weekly theme, plus lots of content on social media and postcards through people’s doors. Take a look at the Christmas flyer 2020.

They’re connecting up with Kingsholm Primary School with a prayer booklet so that people can do prayer activities at home.

Organiser Jo Sanders said, “This is a great opportunity to help more people engage with what Christmas really means.” For more information or to get involved with the videos or dropping off #FindingJesus postcards, please contact Jo S as soon as possible by email on jsanders@stcatharine.org.uk.

 

Cheltenham

On each day of Advent, a different business or home around Cheltenham will ‘open it’s door’ and be lit up.

The windows remain open from their opening day from at least 5pm until 1st January.

They are creating a trail leaflet that anyone can walk around and enjoy. If you’re interested in taking part, get in touch with the Revd Sarah Haden at Cheltenham Network Church  by 25 November.

 

Gotherington

A living advent calendar will take place in Gotherington, to bring festive cheer to the village. Each participating household signs up for one of the days of advent and creates their masterpiece in their window, to spread some comfort and joy to passers by. To avoid groups gathering, they will aim to have the windows lit up between 5pm and 9pm each night and for the previous windows to remained lit up over as much of Advent as possible. This will enable people to visit the windows in their own bubbles. This year, they are not able to provide the usual hospitality, but hope that this will return next year.

 

Forest of Dean

A drive through event taking in displays outside churches in the Forest with additional content on social media. This will run from Saturday 19 to Thursday 24 December. For more information or to sign your church up to get involved, contact Jonathan Kear. 

 

Online

The @glosdiocschools Twitter account is providing four short videos, released on every Tuesday in December, with each week telling a different part of the Christmas story. From Mary being visited by the angel to the birth of Jesus, these videos will help to create an individual response to the Christmas story. Every day they will tweet with links to stories, songs and ideas to bring comfort and joy at this very special time of year.

 

Gloucester Cathedral will be sharing an interactive digital advent calendar on Facebook.