Teach your young friends about Jesus at a birthday party in his honor! You can do this as a Christmas or Epiphany activity. We had our high school students plan and run the party for their young siblings, nieces, nephews, and neighbors. This was geared toward preschool aged children. A few were just a little older.
Each activity was accompanied with a brief, age-appropriate explanation for our young guests.
Throw a Birthday Party for Jesus!
Some ideas for the party:
Pin the Baby in the Manger: One of our teens made a large cardboard manger scene, complete with Mary, Joseph, and plenty of animals. She made a lot of little construction paper babies. We put a piece of double sided tape on the back of each one. Each young one was blindfolded, turned around three times, and sent in the right direction. The little ones had a great time with this. We talked about how Jesus was born in a lowly stable.
Shepherd, Shepherd, King: Just like Duck, Duck, Goose but we changed the words. We talked about the different people who recognized Jesus as the messiah who had come to save us. This simple game was a big hit.
The Angel Says: This was our version of Simon Says. It was a good opportunity to explain how the Angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of our Lord. And Mary said yes! And the high school students were having fun messing up and letting the little ones win. Our guests loved being better at this game than the big kids.
Musical Chairs: We played this with Christmas music. We discussed our joy because Jesus came to live among us and to save us. The teens also let the little ones win at this. 🙂
Birthday Cake: Of course there was cake!
Presents: The guest were each asked to bring donations to a food pantry as gifts.
We also had some Christmas themed coloring pages to do as a gathering activity while we waited for everyone to arrive and get settled. The whole party was about an hour, which seemed about the right amount of time for our guests.
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