How to use ‘posada’ to build community during Advent
Intergenerational, adaptable and great for schools: here’s how it works
ORIGINATING IN HISPANIC COUNTRIES TO celebrate the nativity story, Posada can be used in local communities to share the Christmas story, build links between families and build anticipation and excitement for Christmas church services.
Posada is a period of time during Advent when toy figures from the nativity story travel around different households in the community and stay there for one night.
Families can sign up to take part and then become hosts to the holy family for one night during Advent. During this time, children have an opportunity to learn more about the Christmas story, and everyone can meet others from their community as the figures are passed from one house to the next.
School links
Denise Keane from St Mary’s in Mucklestone explains that Posada works well through the church’s strong links with the local Church of England school.
“We have a midweek Sunday school after school, and children who go to this make the Posada figures. We launch the journey of Mary and Joseph at a family service in church where families can sign up to receive it, but children can sign up at school as well.
“A book comes with Mary and Joseph so that children can record photos, and there’s a selection of prayers, or they can write their own. It all ends up back in church at the school’s carol service on a Friday afternoon.”
Intergenerational
Curate Becky Richards from Tixall with Ingestre said Posada was very popular in their parish: “We used figures that older people from our two congregations had knitted, so the figures themselves weren’t breakable. Our older gents made the crib.
“The figures travel around in a story bag with a copy of the Christmas story, plus a diary into which all those who host Mary and Joseph, (and the donkey), can write in their experience.
“Also included in the bag is an Advent candle. This can be lit and burned down one section on the night which Mary and Joseph stay with the family.
“There’s also a short dialogue people can say on the doorstep when they pass the figures over to the next person. It encourages families to visit each other, and the rota is interleaved with older contacts, who have no children, so it gets them meeting a wider set of people around them. People have found this really helpful because they’ve chatted and got to know different people – it builds links between young and old.”
Adapting posada
The idea of passing something around the community from one household to the next can involve any sort of Christmas story-related toy or item. One parish in Loughborough used an Advent star instead, which matched the Church of England’s ‘Follow the Star’ Christmas campaign. Its final destination was a Christmas Eve Carol service at the church.
