Deck the Halls
'Tis the season for churches to illustrate the joy of Christmas with holiday decorations.
Whether the congregation numbers in the hundreds or in the dozens, churches in Butler County make a tradition of welcoming the season with festive displays.
Members of Cranberry Community United Presbyterian Church, 2662 Rochester Road, make decorating the church a party.
Ron Marshall, business administrator the past 13 years for the 510-member church, is in charge of the Eat and Trim Party, which is a function of the fellowship committee.
“We always have that event on the Saturday preceding the first Sunday in Advent,” said Marshall. This year, the first Sunday in Advent was Dec. 1, which means the Christmas decorations went up in the church on Nov. 30.
“We start the day around 9 a.m. with a potluck breakfast, and we always have 40 to 50 people show up for the breakfast in the greeting area of the church,” Marshall said.
“Then we all disperse to various areas of the church and put up the Christmas decorations,” he said. “We will have all the decorations pulled out of storage, and once we are done eating, we take what we need and go to various areas.”
Marshall said Cranberry Community U.P. Church always gets a large, live Christmas tree.
“That gets decorated with lights, and each year our kids make the ornaments for it,” Marshall said. “It's different every year. Every year, we get some craft kit.
They make the ornaments at home and bring them back for the event.”“We save them from year to year. We make new ones and use all the new ones and pull from what's been saved to fill in blank spots,” he said.Marshall said one of the church's most important decorations is its Giving Tree, sponsored by the church's mission committee.“They set up a tree and cover it with tags requesting the purchase of various items from toys for kids to small appliances for families in need. Another popular item is gift cards to many area stores to also be given to families in need.“Our members are asked to take a tag from the tree, purchase the item on the tag, and return it to the church for distribution by our mission committee,” he said.“In the sanctuary, we have a smaller live tree, and we decorate that with lights. It's what we call chrismon tree,” Marshall said.Chrismon is a particular type of Christmas decoration, a Christian symbol representing Jesus Christ.“Women of the church made these decorations years ago, and we use them to decorate that tree each year,” Marshall said.“They are small, cross-stitched Christian symbols in a small ornament case. They are various symbols of the Christian faith.”“These were made years ago, I'd say back in the '80s. We've been using them for years. There's probably about 50 of them,” Marshall said.The predominant symbol in the decorations at St. Peter's Anglican Church at 218 E. Jefferson St. is the poinsettia, said Pat Schnur, a member of the vestry, the group that makes the decisions on spending and budgets at the 115-member church.
She is also in charge of the church Christmas decoration and has been for the past four years, taking over from Elaine Read of Butler.“We have a red color scheme; we use a lot of poinsettias,” said Schnur. “We decorate two Christmas trees.”“We have a nativity set that could be 125 years old. I know it is old,” Schnur said. “It goes in a special area of the church: the children's altar.”The holiday decorations go up on the first Saturday in December and they come down on the first Saturday in January, she said.Schnur said it takes about two and a half hours to get all the decorations in place.Different people are assigned different decorations, she said.“One couple does the Christmas tree; one couple does another Christmas tree; another does the garland,” Schnur said. “It could be a husband-and-wife team, it could be a mother and son, or it could be two guys and two ladies.”“We use ornaments that we have had for a long time. The altar is decorated with white, red and pink poinsettias,” she said.“We do have candle-holders that are attached on the end of the pews on the aisles going down the center of the church. Real candles are lit during the Christmas Eve service. We always have a challenge to find someone to light them; it's quite a few,” Schnur said.
There's a lot of lights at Cranberry Community as well.“On Christmas Eve in the morning, we have a gathering of folks who line all the sidewalks around our building with luminaria. We use the plastic version that is reusable from year to year,” Marshall said.“Each year, we buy a few more,” he said. “We probably have six or seven hundred of them. Our Boy Scout troop comes out at dusk and lights them all for us and tends to them throughout the evening,” he said. The luminaria will be used during the church's three Christmas Eve services at 6, 8 and 10 p.m.“The Boy Scouts pick them up, clean them up and stow them away for next year the day after Christmas,” Marshall said.
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