If you are planning a kids holiday party you’ll be expected to come up with something fun for everyone. Don’t just show a festive movie with cookies and punch for the kids. Be original this year.
The last thing you want to hear (if you were in charge of the Christmas party), is someone asking kids if they had fun and the guests saying blandly ” Yeah, it was okay.” What you want to hear is: “It was great. We [did this] …!” Get them up out of their seats with these lively ideas.
1) Bring plain sugar or spice cookies for party guests to decorate. Place cookies on a napkin and let the kids show their creativity by adding colorful icing, sprinkles, chocolate chips or candies. Make sure that you have paper lunch sacks on hand. You can write their names on them so they can take some edible artwork home.
2) Make gingerbread houses. Older kids may prefer this to decorating cookies. You’ll need sheets of gingerbread or graham crackers. Containers of frosting, candies and sprinkles are a must. It also helps to have square cuts from cardboard boxes for foundations and toothpicks to reenforce walls.
3) Compose a group holiday story. Have your group sit in a circle. The leader can start with a typical holiday opening like “It was the night before Christmas and all the children were tucked in their beds.” Look to the next person in the circle to add one sentence until the story is done.
4) Pin the nose on Rudolph (like pin the tail on the donkey). Enlarge a picture of Rudolph the reindeer. Put it on cork or bulletin board. You’ll also need a bind fold and red noses to pin on the poster. For noses, cut red circles from construction paper. Make sure that you have enough for each guest plus a few extra. Glue each nose to the top of a tack. Have guests write their initials on the noses. Line them up and blindfold the first person. Spin the blindfolded guest around and then point him in the direction of Rudolph to attempt to pin the nose on. Give everyone a chance to try it. Whoever gets the closest wins.
4) Have a string popcorn race. You will be pairing your guests into teams. You’ll need a watch, a super sized bag of popcorn and bowls for each team. You’ll also need one container of dental floss and one sewing needle per pair. Thread the needles with 6 feet of the floss which, will be folded in half and tied at the end (so, each team starts off with a yard).
One team member can do the sewing, while the other anchors the string or is a runner to get more popcorn when it runs out. When the time’s up, the team with the most kernels, wins. If you use larger needles, they aren’t as sharp, but they also cause the popcorn to break. When judging the competition, only kernels that stayed on the string are counted.
Decide how long you’ll give the guests to string popcorn. Also, think about if teams are allowed to thread more floss, to tie ends together, if they fill up their first yard. Just make sure that everyone knows the rules before you begin.
6) Have a Santa’s Sleigh Relay. Split your guests into groups to form relay teams. You’ll need a bucket or small trashcan with a picture of a sleigh taped to it for each team, masking tape to mark the start line, and plenty of small boxes (which will be the gifts). Your guests will be the elves. Their goal is to load Santa’s sleigh.
Here’s the catch: they’ll have to make it from one end of the room to the other with the gifts between their knees. If the box falls, that player goes back to the end of the line to let another team mate try to get a gift into the bucket without touching it with his hands. When the time’s up, the team with the most “gifts” inside of the “sleigh”, wins.
7) Play musical chairs to holiday music. Make sure that you use upbeat songs like “Jingle Bell Rock” and let the good times roll!