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Are you looking to host a Christmas event in your small church that is really fun? Do you want your holiday party to be memorable? The kind of party that people talk about for years to come? Then please, continue to read on because we’re bringing you 5 fabulous, fun, and festive ideas!
The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
The holidays are the perfect time for your small church to deepen connections with each other. Parties evoke a casual and comfortable atmosphere –– an atmosphere where people can just focus on being together and sharing. It’s also a great opportunity to invite new people in and introduce them to your church family in a very non-threatening environment.
Don’t get me wrong. There should absolutely be focused times of ministry during the holiday season. It’s an important time of reaching out and spreading the good news of Christ’s birth.
These events have been designed to allow you the opportunity to have a great time with your small church family. We encourage you to be creative, be together, and simply have fun!
These gatherings are versatile and could be used for women’s groups, children’s ministry, youth, family style, or include everyone for an intergenerational event. Start planning your own fabulous holiday gathering for your small church!
5 Christmas Events For Fun & Fellowship
1. The Jingle Jammie Run Scavenger Hunt
This tradition started in our family; it’s a fun one to do as a church family event. It’s basically a Christmas light-looking ride turned scavenger hunt!
Instructions:
Promo/Invitation emails should go out announcing the date and time to meet at the church. Most importantly, you must tell everyone that ‘jammie’ (P.J. ‘s, pajamas, whatever you want to refer to them as) attire is required for the evening. At least your favorite silly slippers if you’re really against wearing ‘jammies’.
Everyone is divided into teams. One car=one team. Teams can be made of family, friends, visitors, and mixed ages.
Designate someone in your church to be the ‘captain’ of the event. Ahead of time, they make up the Jingle Jammie Scavenger Hunt list and decide on point values for each item on the list.
Teams are sent out to find as many of the items on the scavenger hunt list as they can. Of course, this is a time-specific event, so your car/team must return to the church by the stated finish run time.
Each scavenger hunt item on the list has a point value, and you can only redeem points for each item once. (e.g., If you have a lighted angel on your list and a house has 5 angels, you can’t multiply the point value by 5.)
The Proof Is In The Pictures
Phone pics must be taken to prove teams saw the item. They are also asked to take one team selfie at a certain location on their list for bonus points.
To begin, the captain will gather all families/teams in the parking lot and distribute the lists in sealed envelopes. Then go over the rules and let everyone know they must return to the church at the designated time.
When the Santa hat drops, everyone may get in their cars and open their list, and the hunt is on!!
When families/teams return, ask each of them to tally up their points. The team with the most points will receive the coveted ‘Golden Light Bulb’ trophy (something silly you craft out of Christmas bulbs, of course!). You could even throw in another prize for the best ‘jammies’!
Invite everyone to celebrate together and share fellowship over refreshments.
2. The Tacky Tinsel Holiday Party
We’ve all seen the tacky, glittery decorations that are en masse at Christmas time! Well, instead of rolling our eyes in disapproval, why not embrace our inner ‘tacky’ and have some absolutely silly fun together? Who doesn’t need a little stress relief during the holidays? This is a perfect way to do it!
Send Invitations To Get The Word Out
Invitations/emails get the word out about your fabulous and festive party! Here’s a little invitation rhyme you can use to set the tone!!
You are invited to a Tacky Tinsel Holiday Party!!
Tacky tinsel everywhere, and globs of glitter fill the air.
Come gather on a special night to make this season extra bright!There’ll be fun & games and tinsel too. Glitter for me and glitter for you!
A time of joy, a time of cheer, it won’t be the same if you’re not here!Bring a snack that you can share and wear some socks with ‘tacky’ flare!!
A fashion show to see your ‘style’? Let’s celebrate with lots of smiles!Tacky tinsel, shiny and bright, It’s gonna be a wonderful night!
Include all your info on the time, date, and gathering spot. Ask your guests to bring a snack to share. Determine if you want sweet, salty, veggie, etc., or a little bit of everything!
Include information about the contest. Everyone should wear the tackiest pair of socks they possibly can. You can make them, buy them, borrow them, whatever you like. As long as they are fun and outrageous!
During the party, you will have a “Fashion Show”. Set up a runway (as simple as a plastic tablecloth taped on the floor as a ‘runner’) and have each guest walk the runway to ‘strut their sock stuff’. Of course, this is an excellent time to take pictures for fun memories and social media posting!
Suggestion: Add a ‘service’ element to this party and ask your guests to bring a pair of new socks with them to donate to a local homeless shelter or charity.
Decorate Your Space Glittery & Shiny
Go to your local discount stores, even the thrift stores, and load up on glittery, shiny, and tinsel-y everything!! Enlist a volunteer crew to help you decorate, and just have fun with it!
The Twelve Days Of Christmas Song
There are lots of Christmas “minute to win it” type games available online, but here’s one game suggestion that goes along with your ‘tacky’ theme.
I have heard it said that “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is one of the tackiest songs ever. Whether you think so or not, it is a fun song to use for this next game.
Print out the lyrics to the song and cut each day of the song into strips. Make multiple copies (depending on how many guests you are expecting) of some of the days and no copy of the first day, as everyone will be singing that one together.
Fold the strips and put them in a basket. Pass the basket around and make sure everyone takes a piece. This is their ‘assigned’ verse!
Find yourself a lively song leader to lead this performance! Have everyone seated. Explain that you will all be singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song, but when the verse comes up that is on their strip of paper, they must stand up and sing it with others who have the same one or possibly by themselves.
Remind them that singing ability is NOT a requirement in this game! After all, you’re going for ‘tacky’ and fun! Make sure everyone knows that you will be singing the ‘partridge in a pear tree’ portion altogether.
The key to this game is for everyone to pay attention to keep the song moving at a good pace!! This is a lot harder than you might think! Of course, the person or people who have the five golden rings day should be encouraged to sing with great flourish and drama!! It certainly adds to the fun and laughter for sure!
Host A White Elephant Gift Exchange
This would be a great holiday party to have a White Elephant gift exchange. Each guest brings a wrapped gift that is from a thrift store, your closet or attic, an item that’s used and ready to be passed on. Remind everyone of your ‘tacky’ theme of the party when looking for their gift! This is a fun and silly way to share smiles around the tree.
3. Cookie Creation Stations
This is a great event to invite new friends to or to have as a family-style event. You will need some prep work done for this, but enlist the help of your favorite bakers in the church. You can also slice and bake Christmas sugar cookies with a few friends.
Have enough round sugar cookies for each guest to decorate five. A few extra for eating is never a bad thing!!
You will also need frosting (homemade or premade from the store), various decorating materials, plastic knives, and Disposable Decorating Bags.
Set up five ‘stations’ at your location. Use a different color tablecloth at each station. Each table has one specific cookie design that is made at that station. Guests move from station to station to complete all five designs to take home.
- Melting Snowman
- Reindeer
- Wreath
- Snowflake
- Christmas Tree
It is helpful for there to be pictures of examples posted at each station. Have an ‘elf’ at each station to help, answer questions, and to keep things clean throughout the night.
Be sure to have some sort of container, plate, or box for guests to take their cookies home. (Or also ask each person to bring their own.)
Bakery boxes are another option >> Bakery Boxes
Refreshments:
Have a time of refreshments and fellowship after you are done creating. Include non-sweet snacks since you have been surrounded by sugar all evening!
Card-Making Table:
As an added element to the evening, have a table with blank Christmas cards available. Put some stickers and markers out and let people make a card for someone who might be alone this holiday or your local first responders.
4. The Great Christmas Kidnapping
The premise of this event is to do a ‘surprise’ Christmas gathering or outing with people in your group! You will be ‘grabbing’ people from their homes and taking them on a Christmas adventure!
This event is a fun one to do, especially if you have really small groups. An SUV or even a small rented passenger van is great to use so everyone can be together. This can be in multiple ‘teams’ if you have a larger number of people that would like to be involved.
Determine your date, time, and what your adventure will be. It can be as simple as going to look at Christmas lights with hot cocoa in the car, going to a Christmas play or concert, a tree lighting, or a fun gathering at someone’s home.
You have to do planning for this event! Make out a list of who you would like to involve. Notify the families of those you are going to ‘kidnap’ so they can be aware of your plans and have your ‘victim’ available at the proper time.
The ‘kidnappers’ can dress in Christmas garb, Santa hats, sweaters, reindeer antlers, or whatever they wish. Just have fun! You can wear masks or bandanas if you want to really go for it –– just don’t be scary!
Make up some festive cards to give to all the ‘victims’ as a keepsake that read:
Beware! You are being kidnapped for an evening of Christmas fun.
You will be required to pay a ransom with smiles, laughter, and great joy!
Signed – The Christmas Kidnapping Squad of
[the name of your church or group]
Date
Have fun planning this crazy event, and you will see that people of all ages and stages love to have this event knocking on their door!
5. The Twelve Days Of Christmas Caring
This event is multi-purpose as it combines outreach and charity with gathering and fun. You can use this event for a women’s group or the church as a whole.
This project can be done in 12 straight days or once or twice a week over a month. This idea works best when you tailor it to best fit your small church family.
Each ‘Christmas Caring’ day brings in a different item or task that helps out people in your community. It is a wonderful way to share God’s love and to work side by side with your small church family. Serving together is always a great way to deepen relationships and connect with one another.
Plan this event with a partner or a team. Decide which kinds of charitable projects would best suit your area. Combine days together to save on time and budget. We’ll give you a few suggestions for days below, but this is where your team can really shine with their own thoughts and ideas.
Make sure to include refreshments and fun add-ons to some of your days; keep it simple. Why not have a different pair of people responsible for the ‘added’ touch on each caring day? Perhaps someone in your group loves to open their home during the holidays. This would be a wonderful time to gather there.
Ideas To Get You Started
1. The first day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
Some cans of soup to donate to the local soup kitchen.
2. The second day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
A Christmas card to give to someone who is lonely.
For a veteran’s outreach idea, try this Veterans Day Service Project Idea.
3. The third day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
Some personal hygiene items to bring to the homeless shelter.
Click the link for more Collection Drive Service Projects for Small Churches.
4. The fourth day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
A homemade ornament to hang on our church tree.
5. The fifth & sixth days of Caring are a pair. Our church family brought to thee:
Their voices to go caroling at the local nursing home.
6. The seventh day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
An item to put in a big gift basket for our pastor’s family.
Everyone makes the basket and delivers it with caroling!
7. The eighth day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
A friend and an ingredient to use in a hot cocoa bar we will be having together that night.
8. The ninth & tenth day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
A card of encouragement and Bible verses to send to a missionary.
Have a time of praying for your missionaries, then have a soup supper together.
9. The eleventh day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
Children’s items to use in our Sunday school (or at a local school),
crayons, kid scissors, stickers, construction paper, glue, etc.
10. The twelfth day of Caring our church family brought to thee:
A time to gather outside of our church –– have a time of candlelight prayer for our
town and for the services of Christmas to reach hearts.
Bring your own candles –– have a time of refreshments following.
There are many more ideas to reach out in caring ways to those around us in this article: Reach Out To The Hurting.
Celebrate The Christmas Message With Others
No matter how you decide to celebrate, just remember to take the truth of the Christmas message and pour it into whatever you do! Christ reached down into our world. He gave up His home in heaven to be that baby in the lowly manger. He loved us so much He was willing to go through all the hurt, the anguish, and the pain of this world and the cross to bring us peace!
We do have so much to celebrate. We have so much to be joyful about as we reflect on Christmas. Share the joy with others during the holidays with a fun, festive event.
Share His love with others this holiday season and celebrate well! Comment below to share some of your fun and festive holiday-gathering ideas. We’d love to know what you do!
If you have people in your church experiencing loss this Christmas season, those that might not be in the mood for celebration, consider hosting a Blue Christmas service. You can read about it here >> A Blue Christmas Service Makes Space For Healing & Hope During The Holidays.
Looking for something fresh and new for the holiday season?
Check out the Blue Christmas Pack & the Advent Worship Pack!
Read More
A Blue Christmas Service Makes Space For Healing & Hope During The Holidays
12 Ideas To Reach Out To The Hurting This Thanksgiving, Advent, And Christmas
