Last Christmas at the Hideaway we saw thousands of children visit our centre and many of those enjoyed our Narnia themed Christmas grotto where they visited Father Christmas.

This year we want to do things a little bit differently. We all know that so much of the true meaning of Christmas is lost in the commercialism and noise of santa, gifts and everything else. We want to focus very much on bringing the true meaning of Christmas back to families this Christmas.

We plan to create and build a Christmas story sensory tunnel. This story tunnel will have lights, sound and loads of interesting things to do and enable children to be full immersed in the nativity story. Our aim is to ensure that thousands of children this Christmas understand the real Christmas story. Of course we would love them to know the nativity story, but we also want them to understand the gospel and relevance of the birth of Jesus. To help with this, at the end of the tunnel children will receive a special children's book that tells the story of Father Christmas struggling with the idea of only giving gifts to good children because we all do bad things sometimes. Santa then goes on a journey of discovery where he finds baby Jesus and learns that he gave himself for everyone. It's a lovely way to share the gospel with children through the lens of the nativity and of course using Father Christmas to teach the whole Christmas story and the gospel.

To publish enough copies of the book to giveaway and build the story tunnel we're looking to raise £1000 from our wonderful supporters. If you can help at all that would be amazing. If you would like to see the transcript of the story (currently in design phase) please get in touch with the Hideaway, we'd be happy to send it over!