Hello all, Our next Christmas party will take place at my cousin's house and she wants me to help organize fun activities. Problem is, making snowmen is pretty much my only idea and it's impractical since we'll be wearing nice clothes and all. And so.... I need your help! There's only one requirement: the activities must involve the entire family. My cousin wants to create interaction between the generations. It doesn't matter if the "old ones" only act as judges or something similar. We'd prefer not having to buy stuff, but it's fine as long as it's not super expensive. Thanks!
I generally hate organized family "activities," but one thing we did last year was have each person tell a story about their favorite Christmas memory. Pretty corny, but I enjoyed it for the most part. My favorite memory was when my grandma called my aunt a "dumb-sh**" for giving people the wrong presents.
Ugly Christmas sweaters... That's what we do XD Or, it's not really an activitity, but every year me and my folks watch It's a Wonderful Life together.
Guess I forgot to mention the age range... it spans between 3 and 92 years-old. It's actually a fun idea but I'm afraid the young children wouldn't get into it. As for the memory sharing, again this is something that wouldn't interest the kids. I was thinking more of a game, a small contest, etc. Lol Cogito, here's the problem: my cousin sent me an e-mail right after we left last year's party and she's still expecting to hear from me. I suppose it's time for me to reply and give a few ideas. And we still don't know how it'll take to organize the activities! See, the problem with our Christmas parties is that the kids and teenagers stay in the basement and play video games while the adults are upstairs and talk about stuff. It's been this way for 18 years now and we're trying to change that. I know that for a while, we all had to sing something in front of the family. Perhaps we could make some kind of talent show?
Doesn't have to be a murder could be someone stole Gran's false teeth, have contests finding it etc. Just come up with a basic story, and pair a little one up with an older one
Haha I had a dream last night that it was Christmas...probably because I sent my mom an email yesterday asking her to get my siblings to write wish lists for me. I like to shop early. My family played a game one year where you take a paper grocery bag, open it up, and stand it on the floor. Then everyone has to take turns trying to pick the bag up off the floor using their mouth without having anything touch the floor but their feet. After everyone has done it, you cut a strip off the top of the bag and do it again. Etc etc etc until only one person can do it. It sounds weird. But it was fun. And the winner? My seven months pregnant sister-in-law. It was pretty amazing.
When I saw this thread, I was contemplating a new rule that no Christmas threads may appear until December...
Bah, it's August! I refuse to say the C word yet. Anyway, what about charades? Okay, that does get a bit boring but it can be fun sometimes.
My cousin has a Christmas brunch every year and she makes us do these things. One year what we did was put numbers 1 - 12 into a stocking and have each person / pair pick a number. Whose ever number it was had to sing that "12 Days of Christmas" line. She started the song and when it was time each person sang their line, aaaaaannnnnnd, she videotaped it. It ended up being fun and everyone gets to participate, and the video is hilarious. There is also a Yankee Swap, where everyone who wants to participate brings a $10 (or whatever $ value you want) wrapped gift (could be scratch tickets, movie tickets, wine glasses) and slips of paper with numbers are put into a hat for the number of participants. The hat goes around and each person reaches in and takes a number. The person who has #1 picks the first gift, person #2 picks the next gift and has the option of swapping with #1, #8 can opt to swap with the previous 7, and so on. After the last person has picked and decided to keep or swap, #1 gets to keep or swap.
... Is Christmas the same date for you as it is for the rest of the world? I think it's a bit too early to be preoccupied with Christmas party activities. If you'll be opening presents, we always hid candy canes in the Christmas tree for the kids; whoever found the most candy canes got to open his presents first, second most second, and so on. You do risk ornaments breaking though, especially if there are hyperactive young children playing.
