Lockleaze Light Party - a shining success.

Lockleaze Light Party! - a review of the successful night by St Mary’s & St James’ Youth and Community Worker Matt Smith.

With Halloween just a few days away and autumn well and truly arrived, that only means one thing…it was time for the St Mary and St James light party! Last year’s party was so much fun and with about 100 people attending, we were looking forward to seeing what would happen this year.

There was a great atmosphere about the building with so many people from across the community all catching up, crafting and enjoying a hot dog together! There was no shortage of glittery and sparkly clothing and people waving about their glowsticks with 144 people attending the Light Party across the evening – we almost ran out of hot dogs!
Definitely more needed for next year!

We run a light party to celebrate, you guessed it, light! The world can feel like a dark and lonely place; yet, even in the darkest of rooms, a small candle can bring light into that space. Jesus calls himself the ‘Light of the world’ and says that whoever follows him will live in the ‘light of life;’ we believe that at the dark moments in our lives, though they remain difficult to go through, knowing Jesus’ love is a light in those situations; giving us hope, peace and comfort.

There were many highlights across the afternoon! It was extremely entertaining to watch the marshmallow station in action.
The idea is to dunk a marshmallow on a stick in chocolate and put some sprinkles on top to make it look like a firework – watching the concentration on children’s (and some adults) faces as they precisely scraped out the chocolate bowl, trying to balance as much chocolate as possible on an individual marshmallow and then attempting to coat the sugary treat in even more sugary sprinkles. Eating this creation is a bigger challenge, which resulted in many chocolate-covered faces!

Some more highlights involved watching 25 children and a few parents attempt to slide an after-eight mint down from their forehead into their mouth, leaving a brown trail to see which direction the mint took, from top to bottom.
Limbo was also a popular activity; the children definitely had the upper hand over any parents and adults and put them to shame! I have not heard of a limbo inflicted injury so far, which is also a win!

Special shout out and thanks to Cat Foley for bringing the games, to those who prepared the craft, to those in the kitchen and to all the amazing volunteers who made it happen! And thank you Lockleaze, for bringing a wonderful atmosphere and being a part of it!

Hopefully see you soon!

Matt Smith, Youth and Community Worker, St Mary and St James church.

To take a look at St Marys & St James Church website for their other events and updates click here.