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Life-size Advent calendar inside a shed
WORSHIPPERS and community groups are creating a life-size Advent calendar – based in a shed.
They have created something they are calling ‘Shedvent’ at St Nicholas Church, Bedhampton. It means decorating the inside of a garden shed, with a different festive display each day from December 1-24.
Organisers Gill and Roger Matthews (pictured above at the shed) have recruited lots of church and community groups, each of which will decorate inside the shed on a different day. The local primary school, uniformed groups, mothers and toddlers group, Mothers’ Union, WI and church groups are all having a go.
The theme is Christmas carols, and every day the empty shed is filled with something different. People will be dressed up to illustrate Silent Night and there'll be a recreation of Bethlehem in cardboard for O Little Town of Bethlehem.
The big reveal each day is at 5pm, when the shed doors will be flung open to reveal that day’s decoration. It’s just inside the main front doors at St Nicholas Church in Belmont Grove.
Visitors can drop in any time between 5pm and 6:30pm to check out that day’s display, and volunteers will provide refreshments. Because it is already dark by 5pm, each group has had to think about using lights to illuminate their display in the best way.
And each night, children can collect a stamp on their Shedvent card – with a prize for the child with the most stamps at the church’s Nativity service in St Nicholas Church, at 4pm on Christmas Eve.
The rector, the Rev Max Cross said: “I think it’s a great way of involving the local community in something that helps us all to understand the Christmas story a little better. I hear there is plenty of creativity going on within the different groups as they plunder the dressing-up box, cut out stars, dig out the fairy lights and remind themselves what the words to each carol mean.”
You are welcome to join them each day in December from 5pm to 6:30pm, or for the church’s candlelit carol service at 6:30pm on December 15 at St Thomas Church. More details are on their website.