When it comes to decorating for Christmas, some youth pastors find this to be one of the most difficult things to do. While there are some awesome Christmas decoration setups that people have created, they cost a bundle that not every youth budget can afford. Of course, even on a budget, you will still be able to host a youth Christmas party and have a setup that youth will end up talking about for a long time. The best ingredient for a Christmas Party is games and relationships, but you still want a to have a little bit of decorations to enhance the Christmas atmosphere.

Decorating the Snack Table
Chances are if you are hosting a youth party, you will be having a table spread of food. This is the perfect place to begin the decoration process. Find an inexpensive green table cloth to throw on it and accent it with a series of red candles. If your youth are a little wild, candles might be a little dangerous in which you might want to accent the table cloth with red cups, forks, napkins, etc. You can even simply tie a large ribbon and bow across the table (easily made from a strips of red cloth or even a red table cloth cut into strips, and make it look like a giant wrapped gift. This inexpensive and simple method is the perfect way to begin the Christmas decorations in your home or youth room.

Christmas Lights
Lights are also a very popular way of decorating for your youth Christmas party. You can place these twinkling lights around windows, the edges of a wall or just about anywhere at all. They will add the holiday feeling in a room and can get youth talking. While you are doing this, keep in mind that you should never put together more than 3 sets per plug.

Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree is another staple that will be essential in the space you are decorating. When you are looking for the perfect size, try to shoot for about a foot short of being between the floor and your ceiling. This way, you have room for a topper and if it lights, you won’t have to worry about it touching the ceiling and getting too hot. While you are decorating it, make sure you have a series of lights deep around the inner portion of the tree as well as the edges. Larger ornaments go at the base and they work up to the smallest ones at the top of the tree. This way, you end up with a brilliant looking tree that people will compliment you on.

Balloons
If you find you are just looking to fill the room with some quick Christmas cheer, pick up a series of red and green balloons. These will fill up a space quickly, keep the theme you want for your decorations and it will still feel like a holiday party, even if you don’t have a tree or other items setup. Along with this, you might also consider using some Crepe paper to fill the area above with a series of green and red options.

Decorating Tips
When it comes to decorations, keep in mind that less is more in some cases and you should embrace that attitude. While it might look awesome to pack a room full of winter villages, trees and a variety of other items, it can become visually overpowering. Instead, keep things simple and let each item that you add to your room stand out on its own. This will not only please your youth, but will make cleaning up far easier after the holiday has ended and the decorations need to come down.

Christmas Collection

Get more than 200 creative ideas for planning a Youth Christmas celebration or Christmas Party party. You can immediately download my best Christmas Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Christmas activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

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When it’s Christmas time, every business wants to show their Christmas spirit by having an office party. Sometimes as busy ministry staff we forget to have fun together in the church office. Why not also have an office party for the church staff?

The question is, what are you going to do? No one is going to want to play pin the tail on the donkey. That’s lame. A good Christmas party needs good food and some Christmas games to play while you’re mingling together as a church staff. What kinds of Christmas games are good for an office Christmas party though? You could play gift giving games or have different contests. There are also plenty of fun things to do together like decorating an office Christmas tree.

Door Prizes
First, there is always the solid “door prize give away”, where you give away prizes for those names that get pulled out of a hat. Have a few extra gifts for those that forget to bring one. This ensures that no one goes home without something if they want a gift. While this isn’t a exactly game, people love hearing their own name being called and they also love feeling like they’ve won something cool.

Gingerbread house
Another great idea for a church office party is to have a gingerbread house building contest. Gingerbread house kits are cheap and easy to get. You get a couple of kits and divide your staff into two groups. Then you have a contest to see who can build the best gingerbread house the fastest within a three or four minutes. Use a timer so that you‘ll know when to quit. Whoever has the best or most complete gingerbread house in the specified time frame gets a prize. You can also do this with mini Christmas trees and other “do it yourself” small projects, such as decorating cookies or stringing popcorn and cranberries.

Gift Exchange
Another good Christmas party game is a gift give away game. You pick names out of a hat to see whose turn it is to go. Each person has a small gift (provided by you, and it doesn’t have to be expensive) under the tree so that there is something for everyone. Then when your name is called, the person picks a gift and opens it. Once it’s opened, they can either keep the gift or give it to the next person. The next person picks out a gift for the first person and the first person HAS to keep it, even if it‘s inappropriate for their gender or size. This continues until all the names have been pulled out of the hat. It is interesting because if the first gift isn’t kept it can often continue on until all the men have pink slippers and all the ladies in the office have packages of men’s underwear. Did I say this was a church office party?

Having a church office party can be a disaster when you don’t have any good party games to play or entertainment. With the games that are described above, you can have a lot of fun with just a few simple items and some willing party goers. If this doesn’t work for your office, you can find more games online at Creative Christmas Ideas or convert other holiday themed party games into Christmas party games for adults. Blessed Holidays and good luck entertaining your church staff!

Christmas Collection

Get more than 200 creative ideas for planning a Youth Christmas celebration or Christmas Party party. You can immediately download my best Christmas Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Christmas activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

=> Tell me more about the Christmas Collection

Once again, the holiday season is going full blast, Christmas is getting closer by the day, and you are thinking about throwing a Christmas party for your close friends and family or maybe for your youth group. One of my favorite times as a youth minster is inviting youth and church members to my place for a Christmas Celebration.

Planning for a Christmas Party?
Do you have everything planned out or are you still looking for great party ideas about locations, entertainment, drink, games, and food? All of these are very important things to consider because you want everything to be perfect and who would blame you for that. Of course, perhaps the most important thing to think about and get great ideas for is what you will provide people with to eat at your Christmas party. If you need activity ideas for your Christmas Party, check out Creative Christmas Ideas 

Christmas Party Main Course
With any party and particularly a Christmas party, the most important thing to figure out is what you will serve as a main course particularly if the party is going to be a dinner style party. Different regions of the world have main courses they serve for Christmas, but just because you live somewhere do not think you have to adhere to traditions there. Of course, the old stand bye’s like turkey, lamb, and ham are always very popular amongst diners. However, you may also want to think about serving a goose, duck, or maybe even something Italian like lasagna, which are also favorites of the season.

Christmas Party Side Dishes
Side dishes are also going to be very important to any Christmas feast and they will have to mesh well with the main course or main courses you decide to serve. With most meals, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes are the main side dishes, but they are not the only option available to you. You really want to have contrast with what you serve with the meal so look at serving something like fresh made cranberry sauce, candied yams, stuffing. Vegetables are also necessary in a Christmas dinner and things like green beans, spinach and even broccoli are good choices and can be made more than one way to give the meal diversity.

Christmas Party Desserts
Everyone’s favorite part of a Christmas party or meal is dessert, and boy there are lots of ideas to choose from too. First off, let us look at some pies ideas for your Christmas party or meal. Pumpkin pie is of course the traditional favorite and they are very tasty too. However, you may want to think about serving a strawberry rhubarb pie or a pecan pie both of which are popular southern desserts served at Christmas time. Cheesecake is a popular dessert that is served at Christmas parties and meals and can be made with different fruit toppings and whipped cream.

Christmas Party Snacks
When throwing a Christmas party or meal snack food is always a good thing to have around so that people do not get hungry while waiting for their dinner. If there is no meal, but just a party snacks are a good idea for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that people like to eat good snacks over the holidays and particularly sweets. Second, if the guests happen to be drinking then snacks will help absorb the alcohol in their system. A couple of good snack ideas are Christmas cookies such as sugar cookies and snack mixes that contain thins like pretzels, peanuts, and dried fruit.

Hopefully, this has given you a few ideas for planning the food and snacks for your Christmas Party. After all, one of h best parts of any Christmas Celebration is the food!

Christmas Collection

Get more than 200 creative ideas for planning a Youth Christmas celebration or Christmas Party party. You can immediately download my best Christmas Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Christmas activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

=> Tell me more about the Christmas Collection

Christmas is a great time for getting all of your family, friends, church members and even colleagues together to celebrate the holidays, have a good time, and to create great memories too. A Christmas party is always going to be an excellent way of bringing these groups of people together to have a good time and you can throw a party in almost any venue you choose as well.

Christmas Party Invitations

The first decision you need to make is whom you want to invite to your party. The second decision you will have to make is whether this party is going to be for adults, youth, children, or a mix of the three. The third decision is going to be about entertainment.

When you are throwing a family Christmas party for youth, adults and children it is going to be a good idea to have entertainment that both of these groups will enjoy and can enjoy together. There are some classic party favorites that you can turn too for a mixed age Christmas get together such as bobbing for apples, and pin the tail on the donkey. You can get a lot of Christmas games and icebreakers from Creative Christmas Ideas

Music will of course play a big part of any party and this is especially true during the Christmas season so you should have a good selection or at least a playlist of good Christmas music to play. Singing or caroling is also a great entertainment idea for a mixed age party. If you need some handouts for caroling you can get my Christmas Caroling Songsheets

Christmas Party Venue

Over the holidays, many adults will attend at least one party to celebrate Christmas and they will want to go to a party where there is good entertainment and they can have some fun. One thing to consider is the venue you will use for the party and there a couple of good ideas if you are not going to use your home. Renting a banquet hall is one such idea and it is a good idea too. Banquet halls generally have a lot of room, food prep areas, and even a bandstand.

Should you decide to throw a Christmas party in your home or someone else’s home for adults only you will have a couple of entertainment benefits that you would not otherwise have in a public venue. One of the greatest benefits that you will have by using a private residence is that you and your guest will be in more comfortable surroundings, which will help your guests little to relax and enjoy what you have planned. You might want to consider live music and Christmas themed activities that are more suited to adults. Finally, you may want to consider using a caterer, which will not only provide the food, but clean up as well.

Office Christmas Parties

The most common Christmas party that most will attend is the venerable office Christmas party. If the responsibility falls on you to put one of these events together put together a checklist so that nothing will be forgotten. As far as entertainment goes, games and prizes are often a good idea for an office party. Live music is also another great idea when you throw a Christmas party, because it will people to interact and get to know each other better by dancing with each other. Games that remind the partygoers of past Christmas is a great idea too.

Christmas Collection

Get more than 200 creative ideas for planning a Youth Christmas celebration or Christmas Party party. You can immediately download my best Christmas Icebreakers, games, illustrations, Christmas activity ideas AND MUCH MORE in a useful ebook!

=> Tell me more about the Christmas Collection