All the pieces are coming together for Christmas

Eric Harry, whose daughter Rachel is a teacher at Solent Junior School at Farlington, has created a large nine-piece wooden jigsaw puzzle measuring 4ft by 4ft.

The puzzle includes an outline of a nativity scene, which was drawn by teenager Alex Lemieux.

The pieces were given to different groups to decorate.

Those who took part were Court Lane Infant and Junior school, Solent Infant and Junior schools, Little People’s Nursery, Hamilton House Care Home, the Drayton Parish youth group, Messy Church and Build@Church.

The jigsaw will be rebuilt as the story of the first Christmas is told at the crib service at the Church of the Resurrection in Penrhyn Avenue, Drayton, at 4pm on Christmas Eve.

The community nativity jigsaw project was the brainchild of student minister Julie Minter, who is training to be a priest in Farlington Parish.

She said: ‘When I started to think about the way in which we would tell the story at the crib service this year the word jigsaw came into my head and the idea just developed from there.

‘I thought this would be a fresh and creative way of retelling the story and also a great way of involving people of all ages in a creative activity.

‘I’ve been so excited to see the pieces coming back all decorated.

‘They all look amazing and so different which is brilliant.

‘The idea wasn’t to create a tidy piece of artwork with everything looking all very uniform but quite the opposite to reflect the messiness of our world, the world that Jesus was born into on the very first Christmas Day offering unconditional love, peace, hope and joy to all.’

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