Cedarview Alliance hosts family-fun Christmas event for their community

Craig Macartney
Spur Ottawa Writer

Cedarview Alliance Church is gearing up for their annual Christmas Unwrapped event. Every year they open their doors in early December for a fun-filled event, where families can take an afternoon away from the chaos of the season and just enjoy the Christmas spirit.

“We really want to bless our community with no strings attached,” explains event organizer Jennifer Savage. “There are elements of Christmas Unwrapped where we’re telling the Christmas story, but it’s more geared to help families have a good time and make memories.”

This is their fourth year hosting Christmas Unwrapped in the community. Doors open at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 5.

“It’s a bit different this year. Past years, we’ve done a big performance in the auditorium. After that people could go to the different elements, but this year it’s more like an open house,” she explains. “When you first walk in, we’re doing something called ‘Christmas around the world.’ It has booths from different countries that show their different traditions and you can sample their food.”

Downstairs, in the church’s gym, they have a little animal petting zoo set up. The animals vary from year to year, based on what the farmer can bring in, but Savage says they generally have a large pig, and some birds, rabbits, and sheep.

“We also have our puppet team doing a black-light performance. They’re doing the last portion of the Charlie Brown Christmas. The skit is only about 10 minutes, so they’ll run a few times through the afternoon.”

On the wall in the gym, they’re setting up a massive colour-by-number mural.

“When it’s all done it will be a huge mural of the Nativity scene. It’s kind of neat how everyone can contribute to that.”

They also have cookie decorating and crafts for kids. But Christmas Unwrapped isn’t only geared to families with small children. In their sanctuary they’re organizing a jazz café with cookies, tea, coffee, and hot chocolate.

“We’ll have a choir in there doing carol singing. We’ve done that before, but it was more as background music. This year it will be interactive. And outside, we’re having a ball hockey tournament.”

Savage says it’s hard to know how many people to expect. Last year they hosted somewhere between 500 and 600 people, but the fields around Cedarview Alliance have all been under construction. There’s a new housing development completely surrounding the church now, so they’re hoping for more.

“We want to let people know that we’re here and that we want to bless them. This year we also have a surprise element that people won’t know about until they get here.”