We did our Christmas party early this year. It’s always a battle of schedules later in the month, so, this year, we had ours on Dec. 1! If you are a youth pastor or just someone looking for Christmas party ideas, here’s an example of the games, schedule, devo, and other ideas we used this year…
Schedule
- 4:00 Snacks
- 4:15 Christmas Jeopardy
- 5:00 Pray/Dinner
- 5:25 Devotion
- 5:45 Gift Exchange
- 6:15 Family Feud
- 7:00 Close
Food
We provided chips, soda, and an Oreo bar with several different flavors of Oreos (all Double-Stuffed, of course). Some teens brought snacks to share, but our youth budget provided the pizza and snacks for this event. For a full budget breakdown, contact me directly.
Games
Christmas Jeopardy
I discovered a few free Jeopardy Powerpoint downloads, but this online version worked out much better for us. It included a score tracker and allowed me to easily add questions and answers. We played two rounds with various categories including Christmas song lyrics, Christmas song puzzles, Christmas Bible trivia, Christmas Unscrambles, and more.
To create your own puzzle, visit JeopardyLabs.com.
It worked perfectly to AirPlay my iPad through our Apple TV. I could walk around and had no issues with connections. In testing the PowerPoint version, some of the macros were glitching, so this online version was perfect.
Christmas Family Feud
We had two “families” of men and ladies. A man and lady faced off, and, just like the official show, the first one to get a correct answer was able to choose: Pass or Play. The playing team members answered one guess each, and if the survey included their answer on the board, that team received points. If three incorrect answers were given, the opposite team had a chance to steal all the points by getting one correct answer.
We did not do a Fast Money round, but completed six rounds of various Christmas topics, including actual poll answers from various sources:
- Things related to the birth of Christ
- Christmas songs
- Favorite Holiday Foods
- Things you should avoid at Christmas
- Words that start with “SNOW”
- Colors of Christmas lights
The Family Feud PowerPoint template download is available at YouthDownloads.com, and I edited the file to include all the above Christmas polls. The full edited Christmas PowerPoint file can be downloaded here: Family Feud Christmas 2018.
Skull
A Teens of Faith favorite is a game called Skull, which we play with any small group of 2-12 players (although not with the Day of the Dead theme). We played this with Skip-Bo cards while waiting for the parents to arrive. Skull is a suspenseful bluffing and social-deduction game similar to “Liar’s Dice,” where players decide how many of the other players’ cards they can flip without finding a “Skull.”
Click here for instructions...
Devotion
We read a few highlights from Luke 2:
Gift Exchange
Each student brought as creative a $3 “gift” as they could find at the dollar stores. We had toilet paper, hair dye, light-up dinosaurs, cap guns, ninja kits, Flaarp, whoopie cushions, and much more. Each student either opened a new gift or stole someone else’s gift (and each gift could only be stolen twice).
Needless to say, there was not much stealing. Mostly, everyone anticipated seeing others open the gifts.
Conclusion
We have a good time together whenever there’s an excuse. This month, it happened to be Christmas, yet, as always, our focus is on the reason for Jesus’ incarnation. He came to die for our sins, be buried, and rise again. As long as we focus on that truth, this season is beneficial for everyone.
