TREGADILLETT Brownies held its annual ‘Christmas do’ recently as it was the last meeting before Christmas.

Brown Owl Sara Fuge said: “It’s always nice to invite parents, families and friends in to watch. Sadly, this year, the Rainbows and Guides were unable to join in with the performance but many of them came along anyway as they are sisters of the Brownies.”

The Brownies had been practicing on and off for the few weeks to make sure they were as good as they could be. They used a set of handbells very well for some of the songs — ‘Jingle Bells’ and ‘Away in a Manger’ are some of the easiest songs to do and these are favourites of the children. They also played ‘Silent Night’ while accompanied by Brown Owl on the guitar and everyone joined in with some singing too.

Several of the Brownies read poems such as ‘I keep the snowman in the freezer’ and ‘Santa in the manger’ but the main performance was called ‘The Christmas Photograph’. This involved many of the Brownies dressing up as the characters. Brown Owl, who is a keen amateur photographer, played ‘the photographer who was tasked to take a very special photo showing a typical British Christmas scene’ that would be used for the Prime Minister’s Christmas card.

So, the Brownies played; the ‘photographers assistant’, Santa who wanted to wear green instead of red as he thought it made him look slimmer, a Christmas tree with working lights, a turkey who likes Christmas but was reluctant to be the centre of Christmas and the usual innkeeper, shepherds, wise men, angels and of course Mary and Joseph, with a toy baby Jesus, from the Nativity story.

All the characters came on and explained why they should be in the photograph. After hearing all the stories, they managed to decide who really should be at the centre of the photograph by themselves.

At the end of the play, Brown Owl took the photograph before inviting Rev Alison Hardy and Rev Malcolm Jones to speak to everyone.

After the performance and a little more singing for everyone to listen to and join in with, everyone was invited to stay for refreshments. There was also a small raffle and funds raised will be donated to two Guides who are raising money towards trips abroad next year.

Anyone interested in joining Brownies or as an adult volunteer, should register at www.girlguiding.org.uk