Highland primary pupils were brought face-to-face with characters from the Christmas story with a bit of help from Skye's Strath and Sleat Parish.

Volunteers from the parish, which includes Broadford, Kilmore and Kyleakin churches as well as the congregation which meets regularly at Elgol Village Hall, decided on an interactive approach to bringing the real message of Christmas to life for young locals.

This involved taking on the persona of five characters associated with the birth of Jesus – Mary and Joseph, an angel, a shepherd and a wise man.

Each of the five told part of the Nativity story to pupils from visiting schools and answered any questions the children had.

Among the volunteers were some Gaelic speakers, who were able to engage with children attending Gaelic-medium classes.

Candy cane Christmas message

After meeting each of the characters and learning a bit more about the Christmas story, the children were brought together by COOL (Christian Outlook on Lochalsh) youth worker Timmy Currie for some final facts about the festive season.

Jackie MacLennan, Strath and Sleat parish development assistant, explained: "At the very end, we gave them a candy cane to take home and put a little label on it saying, ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas', but on the back is ‘For unto us a child is born, for unto us a child is given'.

"The idea is that they can eat the candy cane whenever they feel like it, but they can take their label and put it on their Christmas tree at home so a little bit of The Bible has gone into their home this Christmas."

The Nativity story provided an opportunity for children to visit their local church for the first time.

As well as introducing them to the Christmas story, Jackie added that it was also felt important to give each child in the parish the opportunity to visit a church.

"We had other volunteers there to show them around and make sure they were having fun so the whole experience of being in church was one of excitement and fun and welcoming," Jackie said.

As well as the three Skye schools in its parish at Broadford, Kyleakin and Sleat, the Nativity story was also performed for pupils from Lochcarron Primary School by volunteers from the local church, and beamed by live video link to Applecross Primary School.

In total more than 200 pupils were able to participate in person or remotely.

"From what I gather, they really loved it," Jackie said.

"They loved the whole interactive part and seem to have had fun and engaged with each of the characters.

"Because we are doing it with all our local primary schools, we think that every primary school child in our parish will have visited a church this Christmas and been given the Christmas message."