Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Day 13 - Christmas at School

This series of blog posts has been inspired by Geneabloggers Advent Calendar to share memories for others in the future.


Christmas at school was always fun and interesting which makes this post hard as there are sooo many memories!

I went to a church primary school so there would always be some kind of nativity performance at the local Anglican church. I remember one year doing a performance of the alternative version of the 12 days of Christmas in the school, I was one of the 7 swimmers swimming, my younger brother was some kind of punk rocker or something?! I remember also doing a play when I was very young about trolls and being some kind of farm animal in it. Another year I remember doing a Lancashire themed evening where I dressed up in traditional Lancashire costumes and sang local dialect songs, but whether this was a performance for a different time of year or at Christmas I cannot remember. I was quite shy so never played a main character but it was fun all the same. The nativity plays at the church and the plays in the school we would be able to invite our family's to come and watch. As I was older I was often involved with the music in some way, whether it was recorder or clarinet or drums or something. Although I remember, the memories are all a bit vague and higgledy piggedly in my mind. 

At Primary school, I also remember enjoying the Christmas school discos as well and all the Christmas crafts, some of which I must have kept somewhere. We would make presents to give to our parents and cards or calendars. There were lots of days coming up to Christmas with lots of art and glitter and mess for the teachers. There would always be a Christmas school meal with turkey and the trimmings where all the school sat in the hall together and festive music would blast out of the speakers.

Later in Secondary school, Christmas could pass you by without too much interest. I was involved with music quite heavily at school so there was always some opportunity to perform somewhere with the school orchestra or wind band. I remember many visits to nursing homes and other places to perform. The music teacher often had us out of other lessons near Christmas to practice a performance or to visit a nursing home, but it was always great fun. I am not sure you could get away with some much time out of standard lessons now, like you could when I was at school. One fond Christmas school memory was of performing "The Snowman" with full narration and music, I loved it.

If I searched high and low I could probably find a photo or two but at present I do not have time.