Church Christmas Party 2013

Kettering Ward Christmas Party 2013

“Santa’s Secret Workshop”

Date: Saturday, Dec. 14th, 9am-noon

Budget: $1000

Attendance: 200 (we shot for 300 but a storm came in the night before-would project 250 for next event if early in Dec.)

Pajamas welcome!

Itinerary:

*Breakfast

*YW did a short dance to the jingle “Hot Chocolate” from Polar Express CD when we mentioned there        would be a hot chocolate bar included in breakfast

*Short Christmas program

*Workshops to benefit needy

Food: (Cost was $380 including some paper products)

French toast-350 slices made and 250 eaten

Little pastries-13 boxes from Sam’s Club and most were eaten (these were an assortment of donuts, cinnamon rolls, pastries)

Breakfast Pizzas-12 and most of them were gone

10 Pineapples-all eaten

4 bunches of bananas-all eaten

10 bags of oranges sliced-only ate 5 bags worth

2 gallons of milk-1 gallon were used

3 gallons of OJ-2 gallons were used

Hot Chocolate Bar-(5 cans of hot chocolate bought and only used 2 ½ cans)

                Small containers filled with: 1 bag mini marshmallows, 1 bag dark chocolate chips, 2 bags caramels (use dots next time as cut up caramels stuck together and were hard to get out of container), 1 bag white chocolate; large container filled with 2 packages of Pirouette Wafers (cut in half), 60 large marshmallows on sticks, dipped in either white or milk chocolate and then either dipped in sprinkles or crushed peppermint, and about 50 spoons dipped in chocolate and then topped with M&Ms, and 3 bottles of whipped cream.  This was a total hit!! (Line got hung up due to having to make a choice-would need to run multiple lines next time)

Christmas program-We sang a couple Christmas songs and the Bishop spoke for a couple minutes

Workshops- ($620)

Mrs. Claus’ Attic-We made 37 fleece blankets and assembled 40 art kits (benefited Bellbrook Family Resource Center and Dayton Children’s Hospital)

Rudolph’s Apothecary-We assembled 96 hygiene kits. (Benefited both Men’s and Women’s local homeless shelter) Collected donations of personal care items for Harmony House Food Pantry.

Post Office-Made and wrote 80 cards to missionaries serving from ward and military serving.

Holly Tree Ornament Shoppe-made over 225 ornaments and decorated six trees to give to needy ward members.

St. Nick’s Magical Moments-Had a Brother in our ward take pictures of children with Santa.

Simmons’ Sign Making Shop-Scout needed help making signs for his Eagle project.

North Pole Sweet Treats Co.-Filled over 24 goodie boxes to give to needy in ward and the kids decorated sugar cookies for them to take home.

Workshop notes-

Mrs. Claus’ Attic-Fabric was purchased on Black Friday for 27 blankets (1 ½ yards each). Fringe was cut and a little slit in top of fringe so it could be looped. This method made it so even the small kids could participate. 10 pre-made blankets were purchased from Menard’s on Black Friday for $1.50 each. We made 20 blankets there and 2 ladies took the rest home to finish. We rolled the blankets and tied with a bow. 14 receiving blanket sets were donated and tied with bows also.

The art kits were sewn beforehand. I cut everything out and assembled kits for the sisters to sew. Most women were overwhelmed when they saw what we were making and said they couldn’t do it. But when I showed them their “kit”, they were fine with it. All they were doing was straight-stitching hems on pockets or sewing the handles, very easy. I then collected and finished sewing. On one side of the kit we put 10 half sheets of paper in the large pocket, and a sheet of stickers in the small pocket (bought in bulk on Amazon.com). On the other side was six small pockets for crayons. I bought the cheap Oriental Trading Co. 6 pack crayons and they are smaller than regular crayons, so I was a bit disappointed in them. But I used them anyway. And then we used six more crayons from the cheap boxes I got on “Back to School” sales, for a total of 12 crayons in each.

Rudolph’s Apothecary-I purchased most of the hygiene kit products from Dollardays.com and they came in boxes of 96-shampoo, mouth wash, deodorant, and the bars of soap had 100. Then from Dollar Tree I ordered their toothbrush/toothpaste combo (had 108) and picked up 10 packs (10 each) razors at the local store. Bagged in gallon Ziploc bags. Had several medium size boxes wrapped in Christmas paper for the other donations to go in. (Make sure they aren’t large boxes or they get too heavy to carry)

Post Office-I purchased 4-5 packs of predesigned Christmas cards from the Dollar Store. Also cut up 8 ½ x 11 cardstock and folded in half to make cards-we probably used about 50 of these. Then from Oriental Trading I purchased the snowflake stamp set (pre-inked) and a large bag of adhesive foam winter-type stickers (we used 1/3^rd of the bag). Then each table had pens, colored pencils, crayons, scissors, scrap cardstock, glue sticks, etc. (I think only one person used the scrap paper and glue stick).  Had a main table set up with “mailboxes” for each person we were writing to so they could be personal messages.

Holly Tree Ornament Shoppe-We had four different stations for ornaments. The first was a Fruit Loop wreath (made on pipe cleaner and hot glued bow on). We used 1 ½ boxes of cereal and probably 60-70 pipe cleaners (come in packs of 100). Next was a snowflake made from small popsicle sticks-3 sticks glued on top of each other a different angles, then spray painted white and a hole drilled for hanger (don’t drill again as split too many-hot glue ribbon hanger on next time). These were decorated with adhesive small jewels from OTC. Although the packet said it has like 500 jewels, it only made about 20-30 ornaments. So the rest of the ornaments we used markers and glitter glue to decorate. I think we made around 40 of these. Third ornament was a paper pieced snowman. It only took glue sticks to assemble and a marker to decorate face. He was the least one made. Had 57 kits and only used about 20. I think he was too hard for younger kids (but the cutest ornament I think). Last were salt ornaments in various shapes. These were buggers to make. It was easy to make the dough and cut out, but they took a week to dry (have to flip daily), and they are brittle if you get too thin. Used a skewer to make hole in dough for ribbon hanger, after we cut out and before they dried. I tried to stamp some images on the dough before it dried, but my cheap stamps didn’t work too well. I had about 60 and we used them all. They decorated them with markers and glitter glue pens from Dollar Store. (Glitter glue took a while to dry so we placed them on small plates and into a small Ziploc for easier transport home.) We let them make 2 ornaments and take one of them home, with the other decorating the trees for the needy.

I had six small artificial trees that I let them decorate and take to the homes. I’ll collect them after Christmas to use again.

(If I did this again, I’d forego the snowman ornament and do the beaded candy cane ornaments instead)

(Prior to the event, we had the families picked out and drivers assigned to deliver the trees-they were all under 4’ tall so easy to fit in mini vans)

St. Nick’s Magic Moments-We had a professional photographer set up all his equipment and take beautiful photos that we uploaded to a generic Google site for easy download. We handed out small candy canes after pictures. (We purchased a Santa suit last year)

North Pole Sweet Treats Co.-I had a stack of goodie boxes left over from years past that we used (I know OTC sells them cheap too). We had each family bring a plate of treats to be boxed up. I provided gloves and hand sanitizer and we put tissue paper in each box and let the kids pick treats to fill the boxes, in assembly line fashion. Then we let the kids decorate sugar cookies (assigned 3 women to each bring 3-4 dozen sugar cookies). I made 8 batches of Wilton’s buttercream frosting. Some was left white, and then tinted some red and some green. I had some bowls filled so they could spread ice them, and then I filled 6 pastry bags with tips for finer decorating. Then we had 4 large containers of sprinkles. I probably had enough frosting leftover that I could have gotten by with 6 batches. And I have about ½ of the sprinkles left (I bought the 4 set from Michael’s with a coupon). We had small plates and Ziplocs for the kids to put their cookies in so they didn’t drop them and make a mess of the carpets. We asked the HP and RS for names of families, prior to the event, who could use the treats, and we had a sign up for people willing to deliver them. So a sister worked on a list and assigned delivery people to each box and it went smoothly.

Additional Info:

I found a 12’ Christmas tree at the Church and we put that in the center of the gym, so it looked like town square. We used the overflow for the Post Office, the Stage for the Ornament Shop (so we could use the small trees as decorations on the stage), and the YW room for the food (serving the hot cocoa bar from the open countertop in kitchen). Then used the YM, RS, and Primary for other shops.

We had Christmas music playing throughout the entire building through the breakfast and activities. It took a little to figure out sound system. Had to play music on Ipad in Chapel and had it hooked to the sound system box-also had to have back curtains open ten feet to trigger sensor to allow music to play in gym-we figured it out, but it did take a little trial and error.

Decorated the gym with snowflakes hanging from fishing line on hooks. Didn’t have a budget for centerpieces so I just brought my decorations from home. Used glitter and ribbon and large bows for long tables.

Each “shop” had a cute sign outside its door. Hung snowflakes and such in each room to make festive.

We had to do a morning activity due to scheduling conflicts, but I think it worked out really well and it allowed us more money for activities as breakfast is cheaper. The children liked the idea of coming in their pajamas and many adults did too. It was a huge success and many comments that it was the best Christmas party they have ever attended.

My sister also did a Ward Christmas party this year. I asked her to write down what food she used so I might have an idea on amounts if I ever had to do a ham dinner. Here's what she said:

Ham-bought 132 lbs, had about 30 lbs left (wanted to have extras to give to less fortunate in ward)
Mixed vegetables-big bags from GFS-14 bags, had 2-3 bags left
Rolls (set out on tables)-from Sam's-4 wheat, 6 white, about right
Fruit-50 lbs. of mixed, cut fruit-needed more
Baked Potatoes-10 bags (#10 each) from Sam's-had 2-3 bags left over

Fed around 200 people