Christ the King Feast Day Party

by Lisa Beaulieu

Here's a description of a Christ the King Feast Day Party that I helped the youth group at our middle school put on at our church (St. Leo the Great Catholic Church) for the Millennium Year Feast Day. It was a fabulous success.

We set it up like a fun fair or bazaar and asked for other groups at the local Catholic school, the Catholic Home-school Group, the Junior High School student council, Confirmation class (and anyone else we could think of!) for help with organizing and staffing the booths.

We asked these groups to "adopt" a booth for the Festival. Booth sponsors prepared, set up, ran and cleaned up their adopted booth. We provided some materials, and their other costs were reimbursed. Each group that volunteered to sponsor a booth was assigned 4 Junior High teens to help prepare, run and clean up at that booth.

The attendance was least 200 kids ranging in age 2 years upwards, including the Junior High School kids who helped put it on. I think they had as much fun as the little ones, if not more.

The entire event lasted for about an hour and a half (from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.) This was a good length of time for the little ones to be out in the evening. By the time we finished the clean up, it still wasn't too late for everyone else, either. If you held an event like this on a Saturday afternoon it could probably run longer and entertain even more kids.

The Booths:

Christ the King "Crown" table: Children colored crowns to take home.	Pin the Crown on Christ: A game like pin the tail on the donkey, with a large picture of an enthroned Christ	Soldiers for Christ: 'Nerf' archery or shooting game; the Junior High kids dressed up as demons. You could also provide a large picture of Satan as a target. The kids shot at the demons for points to win a prize.
Crusaders versus Infidels: This was a pillow fight area for controlled (2 minute time limit) pillow fights between 2 teams (we provided armbands for the teams. )	Fishers of Men: The standard fishing game. A fishing pole or net came back with a prize. The littlest children really liked this one.	"Smile God Loves You" Bean Bag Toss
Roman Soldier Squad: The junior high student wore soldier costumes. They wandered through the hall looking for someone to 'arrest.' The prisoners were then marched to a 'prison' area. They were released by an adult or teen when they could recite a scripture.	Catechism Corner: The kids got a prize when they answered a question from the catechism. We provided questions of varying difficulty by borrowing a Catechism trivia game.	Face Painting
"I'm a Child of the King" Crown poster: Kids signed their names on an offering/sacrifice on a jewel-shaped card that was taped on a poster-size crown. Offerings suggested were: "I'll say an Our Father for the children of our parish to make Christ the King of their Hearts", "I'll say a Hail Mary for the Souls in Purgatory", "I'll give up a dessert for an end to abortion," etc. We later put this large poster up in Activity Center so parish members could all see it.	Clowns with balloon animals

All the prizes were provided by the youth group. We spent about $200 US on "prizes" - a mix of candies as well as lots of little Christian give-aways, like medals, holy cards, saint's cards, rosaries, and other things. For a special touch each kid also got a "I'm a King's Kid." brass pin.

Our party was a great success. Everyone had a wonderful time. We'll definitely be doing it again next year.

Update, December 2000

Early in Advent, we received a letter from Kathleen Bonello, a catechist in a village in Malta. She told us about their Christ the King party, and sent some marvellous pictures.

She wrote:

"We prepared the children who come to our centre of catechism by holding the activity which you have at your site - the Christ the King Feast Day Party. We gave each child couloured paper in the form of a crown. At home children coloured the crown and wrote on it what they were going to give Christ as a present for his Feast since Christ likes to see us, his children, doing the right things and things which do good to others.

We held a little celebration in from of the Crucifix, whom we dressed with a golden crown and a red cloth with a scepter.

We pinned all the crowns which the children brought around a picture of Christ the King.

I am passing on photos which we took at this celebration with the work of the children. I think it is worth passing on the photos to your site so that you would be able to pass them on to your readers.

---

Return to Fridge Art Page.