Barrhaven unwraps an early Christmas gift
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.”
Similar Articles
Celebrating the hope rising in the Middle East
Good news from the Middle East can be hard to find. Yet encouraging stories of hope from the Middle East are a focus at the Metropolitan Bible Church’s Celebrate Missions 2016 conference. The keynote speaker this year is Nizar Shaheen, founder of Light for All Nations, a Middle Eastern media ministry. Despite […]
Stepping into compassion
Compassion Canada is widely known for their child sponsorship program. Fewer people, however, know about the various resources they offer the Church. Last year Compassion released a new curriculum, available for free, that helps children and families connect with […]
NET missionaries celebrate this year’s catch
National Evangelization Team (NET) ministries gathered their missionary teams last month, in Ottawa, to celebrate God’s work during the past year. Net missionaries are all youth, ages 18 to 30. The six teams spent the past eight months […]
A light amid current darkness
More than one year into COVID-19 restrictions, CityKidz is still waiting for the green light to restart their interactive Saturday Playhouse program. Recognizing the profound need children have to be in a community rich in positive relationships, CityKidz Ottawa has […]
Navigating the political change
Campaigning on a platform of change, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals swept the country. With a new prime minister, leading a strong majority government, many evangelicals are wondering how these changes will impact the Church amid the ongoing clash of worldviews […]
Motorcycles for Jesus
“The basic premise of Christian motorcycle ministry is that if a man is not saved by the age of 40, he has less than a four percent chance of being saved, in Canada. Most of the men who own cruiser-type motorcycles are over 40, so it gives us a commonality with them to hear about Jesus […]