Orthodox Christian Education

Although I was fighting a cold (and eventually lost) during the preparations and the party itself, the event went rather well.

Choice of days is always limited, because the date needs to fall between Orthodox Christmas (Dec. 25/Jan. 7) and St. Syncletike (Jan. 5/18 – always a strict fasting day), as well as be on a day when school is not in session and not on the day of the annual St. Basil’s Day luncheon. This year we chose Monday, January 16, MLK Day.

The other major decision was location, St. Isidoros on Long Island, or St. Markella in Astoria. St. Isidoros was considered in order to include more girls from eastern Long Island. As it happened, we chose St. Markella, and had a great turn out from out east anyway.

Because I do this myself, I miss many girls who should be invited. I was amazed how many girls I saw at church the day before, whom I had missed. By then, because of the inflexibility of the program, the number of girls who had confirmed that they were coming, and my being sick, I was not up to extending on the spot invitations. Twenty seven girls and three moms attended all together. Thank you, moms! I can’t do this without you.

I was also surprised by the low attendance from our own Greek school. More girls from other churches and schools participated than from our own. A large number of these girls do not attend church anywhere, and one announced that her family does not have a religion.

Last year, I held two parties, one for teens and one for younger girls (4th – 8th). This year, they all came together at 12:00. Then, at 2:30, we said “Good bye” to the younger girls, and the teens (8th – 11th were invited, although three 7th graders had permission to remain) stayed for something special just for them.

My fear was that younger girls might feel left out of the extra activity. In fact, two girls were a bit disappointed about that. I will make a point to have the next event focused for the younger girls.

The main program included a greeting activity (cutting out paper snowflakes and hanging them over our food table), an ice breaker (notes below), Bible study (which included reading Luke 2 and giving girls their own Bibles), short popular Christmas video, active game (notes below), singing traditional carols, and pot luck luncheon. As usual, the moms provided a delicious variety of food. The period from 2:30 – 3:00 was dead, and I heard one girl say she was bored. There should have been another activity for that time slot, but I’m not sure what that would have been. I was busy handing out Christmas gifts (Stupid is NOT a Bad Word) and taking care of the girls who were too young to stay. How could I have handled that differently?

Biggest mistake: no photos.
My favorite: singing carols with the girls

Notes:

Our meeting and greeting music was Peace on Earth, by Casting Crowns.

I get my game ideas from various online sources. (Suggestion when looking for games online: include the word “Christian” in your search. The games won’t be religious, but you will save yourself a lot of bother sorting through inappropriate activities.)

Icebreaker: Would you rather? We did a sitting/standing variation. Girls sat and listened to a list of questions such as “Would you rather give up your computer, or your pet?” If they agreed with the second choice, they stood up. I was losing my voice and greeting guests, so a student led. By the sound of the laughter, I’d say this was a success.

Active game: I combined features of two games. One is the Christmas puzzle game. Cut a large Christmas gift bag into two identical puzzles of 12-15 pieces. Two teams compete to complete their puzzle first. I used our props from other games to make this more difficult. One girl on each team put on oven mitts, scarf and Christmas cap, picked up a puzzle piece, ran to another table and placed the piece. This was okay, but would have been better with more teams or fewer girls. We had 12 girls per team and this left too many not immediately involved in the action. 

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