10 Wonderful Christmas Activities the Entire Family Can Enjoy!

Christmas holiday parties can be either an ordeal to endure or a great festive celebration. It all depends on how well planned the activities of the event are. There are Christmas traditions that can be turned into wonderful holiday activities that are entertaining and will enrich a dull party. Try one of the following to put sparkle in your Christmas gathering this year.

Decorate the Gingerbread men or Christmas cookies

Bake some plain large 3 to 4 inch gingerbread men or other Christmas sugar cookies ahead of time. Prepare or purchase white icing and collect decorating materials, like red hots, mini and large chocolate chips, coconut, decorating decors. Put the Gingerbread men in a covered container to keep them fresh. You can pull out the plain gingerbread men for an "instant" cookie decorating party that adults and children of all ages can participate in. Have some mulled cider or hot chocolate to serve with the finished gingerbread. You can also poke holes in the gingerbread men when they are baking and string a red or green narrow ribbon through the holes to turn the gingerbread men into ornaments for the tree.

The ingredients can be kept covered and pulled out whenever the urge to decorate some cookies arises!

Deck the Halls Open House

When it's time for the tree decorating, invite friends and family to come deck the halls for Christmas. Ahead of time make sure you have all the decorations in order, light strands that work, boxes of ornaments, ribbons and tinsel or garland ready to put on the tree. Serve favorite Christmas cookies, eggnog, or cider to the tree decorators and make sure you have Christmas music playing the entire time. It's the simplest and easiest Christmas party to plan, but remains a favorite.

Cookie Exchange

Set aside an afternoon to host a cookie exchange with friends or family. Each guest brings a dozen cookies for each person in attendance, plus one dozen extra to serve at the party. For instance if 12 guests are coming, then bring 13 dozen cookies of one kind. It may sound like a daunting task but general 3 batches of a cookie recipe will make that many cookies. You also bring a large container to bring home your 12 dozen cookies.

At the party, the hostess provides a table large enough to hold everyone's cookies. Guests go around the cookie table and collect a doz cookies from each type. (Have the guests bring the cookies in individual ziploc bags with a dozen in each bag) The host or hostess would then have nice large platters to display the dozen sharing cookies and everyone get's cookies and tea before they leave for home with all their Christmas cookie baking done for the season!

There are some wonderful Christmas cookie recipes here.

Operation Christmas Box Party

In this activity, guests are asked to bring items that will be placed in shoeboxes to be wrapped and sent overseas as part of the Samaritan's Operation Christmas Box charity. Good items include pencils, small writing pads, colored markers, small toys, combs, brushes, toothbrush and toothpaste, jewelry, chewing gum, hard candy, (nothing that would melt), soft washcloth and bars of nice soap. Encourage them to think creatively and come up prizes for the best items brought to the Operation Christmas Box Party. Once there, all the items are placed on long table and people each take a shoe box and pack the shoe box with as many items as they can stuff into the box. The boxes are then taken to the wrapping station, where they are wrapped in pretty Christmas wrap. Everyone can bring a shoebox or the host or hostess can arrange for the shoeboxes ahead of time.

Serve light refreshments, but don't make the food the main activity for this. It's a good activity to encourage kids to think about others, but adults of all ages like this activity also. Sometimes guests get really into the activity and contact manufacturers and collect donations of items for a month or so ahead of time. A prize could be given for the most loot collected!

Christmas Caroling Activity

Christmas caroling works well if a pre-arranged route is planned. For instance members of the same church could plan on caroling at a nursing home, or at the homes of shut-ins who aren't able to come to church or get out of the house for many festivities. Have the carolers bring small gifts or cookies that can be left with the people they carol for. Make up a caroling sheet with the words of popular Christmas carols on them, so everyone has the words for the songs. No practice needed, just make a joyful noise. This site has lyrics for 100's of carols.

Gift Wrapping and Wine Party

This activity is a lot of fun for the ladies of a family. Set aside an afternoon a couple of weeks before Christmas to have a Wine and Gift wrapping party. At this party, the guests bring a stack of presents that need to be wrapped, along with some wrapping paper and some trims and ribbon. Everyone piles the wrapping items on tables, one for gift wrapping, one for ribbons, one for decorations and gift tags.

Put on some Christmas music, pour the wine in festive glasses or have Christmas cookies and other Christmas beverage like mulled cider or hot tea. Put some Christmas music on and let the wrapping begin. Compete to see who can come up with the most innovative wrappings, or the prettiest or funniest packages. And of course the more wine you drink, the funnier those packages are going to look!

Make an ornament or activity

The host or hostess plans out 2 or 3 homemade ornaments or each guest brings the items for everyone to make a homemade ornament. You can also have each guest bring enough stuff for 3 ornaments and at the party everyone decides which ornaments they want to make. They'll still get to take home 3 ornaments, but they might be different than the 3 they brought to the party. The hostess could just have Christmas treats and drinks and let the guests bring the ornament materials. Or the hostess could have some plans and materials for a variety of ornaments and clear typed up decorations and a sample of each ornament. This activity can get messy, but for your crafty friends it's great.This Associated Content article by Carol Bengle Gilbert lists some great ideas for homemade Christmas ornaments to make.

Christmas Movie Night

Pick a favorite Christmas movie like It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas or Miracle on 34^th Street. There's a huge list of Christmas movies here. Make Kettle corn, or pop popcorn and string some while you watch the movie. Put the popcorn strings on the Christmas tree or outdoors on the trees for the birds for Christmas. Have the Christmas lights on and gather with warm quilts and good friends and family to share a special Christmas movie together on the new big screen TV you purchased ahead of time for Christmas! 100 favorite Christmas movies are listed here.

Go for a Christmas Eve ride to see all the holiday lights

If it's snowing or not, a early evening Christmas activity that all ages can enjoy, is to dress warm, pile in the family van or car and take a tour to just ooh and ahh at the neighborhood Christmas lights or go see that special commercial display that you always mean to visit. In many areas, there are even churches and areas that set up special drive through routes where you can see the beautiful light displays that mark Christmas nights. While you're out, visit a living nativity scene. It's a wonderful Christmas activity to remember the reason for the season of Christmas for many religious observers.

Drunken Open House Party with all the neighbors and everyone you know!

This says it all. Pull out all the stops. Make up huge appetizer trays, lots of cookie platters, a yule log, huge punch bowls of punch, (one or two of which will be spiked all through the night). Dress in your best most elegant holiday sweatshirt or black glittery holiday dress and decorate the house so it looks just like Martha Stewart has been there leading the decorating team. Invite your boss, your employees, your neighbors, your relatives that you only see once a year, your best friends and even those you haven't spoken to all year. It's an Open House. Prepare to be broke, exhausted and worn out, but hey's it's just once a year! And here is a list of 10 great party appetizers for your Christmas Open House Event.

Make time with family and friends this Christmas to spend memorable times together, celebrating old favorite traditions or creating some new ones!