It’s time to get ready for singing a Christmas Song for Sacrament Meeting. This is always easy and fun. I usually pick Christmas Bells Are Ringing because it it sooooooooo easy to teach and it is pretty. Everybody learns it really fast. Then you have to pick another one that can be sung with it and this one will take most of your time.
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| “Christmas Bells are Ringing…Here What They Say to You….Jesus is Born…In Bethlehem…” |
A PDF flip chart for Christmas Bells is HERE at Sugardoodle.
Picture a Christmas is my favorite. It is such a pretty song and the words sing of all the cast of characters in the Manger scene. So it is fun to get a children’s type of manger to use and have kids hold up that icon as we sing about them. Another idea I’ve done in the past is to have the kids pass out the manger scene before the song and as we sing about the shepherds, or the angels, the child holding them come up and put them in the manger scene. By the time the song has been sung, the whole scene is back in place.
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| Bring in a handmade or child’s nativity set to sing Picture a Christmas… |
A PDF flip chart for Picture a Christmas is HERE at Sugardoodle.
It is also a great way to help kids remember what comes next in the song…..they are looking at the little pieces of the manger scene to help them remember the words.
| This would be a perfect nativity to sing the song ” Picture a Christ mas” with. |
Another one that I’ve done in the past is very easy; Away in a Manger. I think it is so familiar to them you won’t have any problems getting it memorized in a few weeks to perform in Sacrament Meeting.
When Joseph went to Bethlehem
I think he took great care
To place his tools and close his shop
And leave no shavings there.
He urged the donkey forward,
Then, with Mary on its back,
And carried bread and goat cheese
In a little linen sack.
I think there at the busy inn
That he was meek and mild
And awed to be the guardian
Of Mary’s sacred Child.
Perhaps all through the chilly hours
He smoothed the swaddling bands,
And Jesus felt the quiet strength of
Joseph’s gentle hands.
And close beside the manger bed
He dimmed the lantern’s light,
And held the little Jesus close upon
That holy night.
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| Joseph and Mary at the birth….”and awed to be the guardian of Mary’s sacred child” |
A harder Christmas song is When Joseph Went to Bethlehem. It’s harder because of the vocabulary. But it is a sweet song most kids will always remember because it tells the story from Joseph’s viewpoint. It is sweet and tender and one of my personal favorites. A beautiful PDF document with pictures can be found at Jolly Jenn. The link is HERE at Jolly Jenn.
| “Sing Praise to Him….remember HIM as we picture Christmas this year! “ |
I would get started with these songs now so you will be ready to sing them possibly the week before Christmas, since the ward choir will probably be doing the music on Christmas Day. Then the next few weeks you will have some songs to practice for, before starting all over again with presentation songs!