Christmas is always a very special time in Ballyfin NS, with lots of lovely activities taking place. 

Christmas Art 

Look at some of the beautiful Christmas art that we made during December 2025!

Nativity Plays

On Thursday December 11th, the Junior and Senior Infants performed their Nativity plays 'Hey Ewe ' and 'The Curious Sheep' for a great crowd of parents and grandparents in the school hall. All the children were excellent, and well done to Niamh O'Rourke and Aoife Nell for all their work preparing the children. 

Christmas Pantomime

On Friday December 12th, Junior and Senior infants attended 'I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas' in the Dunamaise Theatre, Portlaoise, kindly subsidised by the Parents' Association. While the goblins were a little scary, Santa Claus and the Hippo were a great hit, and the bus journey was also fun!

Santa at the Movies

 'Santa at the Movies' takes place on the afternoon of Thursday, December 18th. Thanks to Cora Gorman for organising it. 

Carols at Christmas, 2024

On December 18th 2024 we were delighted to welcome the whole community to St Fintan's Church Ballyfin. for our 'Carols at Christmas' concert. Mrs Martina Kelly conducted a wonderful choir of 5th and 6th class pupils, supported by the beautiful playing of Miss Clare Kavanagh. It was a really beautiful evening. Our thanks to Fr Joe for his opening prayers and for allowing us to use the Church, to Rev Alec Purser for his closing blessing, and to Br Matthew for decorating the church so well. We were delighted with the crowd that attended. 

Christmas Raffle

After the Carols at Christmas, the congregation came across to the school hall for tea, chat and our Christmas Raffle. The raffle hampers had been donated by the parents of the school, and by the staff of the school. Thanks to Sarah for the lovely job she did in preparing them. The Christmas Raffle raised 1770 euro towards our Astroturf project, and we are very grateful to everyone who supported it. Dolores Linden, John Dowling, Deirdre Finn and Clare Ryan were the winners on the night. 

Christmas Assembly

We all gathered as a school for our final assembly and prayer service of 2024 on Friday, December 20th, just before closing for the Christmas holidays. The children were all dressed in their favourite Christmas outfits, so the hall was a sea of bright colours.