Christmas is Coming

Christmas offers one of the easiest times of the year to connect with our community, as people are more open to attendng church and events.

Tamyra Horst, Women’s Ministries director of the Pennsylvania Conference, encourages you to host fun, easy events at your church or home—events that offer friendship and connection, instead of a “program.

Whether it be a craft night, a Christmas tea party, a DIY gift night, a Christmas wrapping party, or a recipe swap and tasting, she encourages the hosts to combine a fun activity with a service project that gives back to those in need.

She advises asking these five questions before planning an event:

■ Who in our community is often overlooked?
■ What are people already doing that we could join?
■ What do local nonprofit organizations say they need?
■ What can participants realistically sustain after the event?
■ How can we build relationships rather than simply donating something?

Here are several Ideas for Planning:

• Christmas Craft Night — Make a wreath, ornament, centerpiece, painted sign, or simple gift. Provide everything so guests only need to show up.
• Christmas Tea — Pretty tables, finger foods, desserts, music, and perhaps a short Christmas thought or testimony. This can be elegant or very simple.
• Cookies & Cocoa — A casual evening with a hot-chocolate bar, Christmas cookies, music, and conversation. Especially easy in someone's home.
• Christmas Cookie Exchange — Everyone brings a few dozen cookies and leaves with an assortment. Add cocoa, cider, and pretty take-home boxes.
• Christmas Cookie Decorating — Provide baked sugar cookies, frosting, and decorations. Women can decorate some to take home and some to give away.
• Christmas Brunch — A Sunday morning gathering with an easy menu, Christmas music, and time to visit. A nice alternative for women who don't want an evening event.
• Soup & Sweaters Night — Invite everyone to wear a Christmas sweater and enjoy several soups, bread, and dessert. Cozy, inexpensive, and easy to host.
• Favorite Things Christmas Party — Everyone brings two or three of a favorite inexpensive item (tea, lotion, candle, kitchen gadget, etc.) and goes home with someone else's favorites. Set a low dollar limit.
• Christmas Around the World — Invite women from different cultures to bring a Christmas food, tradition, song, or story from their country. This could be wonderful in multicultural churches.
• DIY Gift Night — Make two or three simple gifts such as simmer-pot jars, hot-cocoa mixes, flavored salts, bath salts, or cookie mixes. Make one to keep and one to give.
• Christmas Wrapping Party — Set up wrapping stations with paper, ribbons, tags, cocoa, snacks, and Christmas music. Invite women to bring their unwrapped presents. Surprisingly practical—and very inviteable!
• Christmas Movie & Cocoa Night — Pick a family-friendly Christmas movie, serve popcorn and cocoa, and make it an easy girls' night out.
• Christmas Game Night — Christmas trivia, Name That Christmas Song, Christmas charades, simple table games, snacks, and prizes. No complicated programming needed.
• Gingerbread House Night — Teams or individuals decorate inexpensive gingerbread houses. Give silly awards: Most Beautiful, Most Creative, Most Likely to Collapse, etc.
• Christmas Recipe Swap & Tasting — Everyone brings a favorite holiday dish or dessert along with copies of the recipe. Compile the recipes afterward and send everyone a digital collection.
• Candles & Carols — A quieter evening in someone's home with desserts, candlelight, Christmas music, Scripture, and conversation about the meaning of Christmas.
• Christmas Story Night — Invite several women to share a brief Christmas memory or story—funny, meaningful, poignant—mixed with desserts and music. This could naturally open the door for someone to share what Jesus has meant in her life.
• A “Blue Christmas” Gathering — A gentle evening specifically for women who find the holidays difficult because of loss, loneliness, divorce, family changes, or other circumstances. Not necessarily a grief seminar—just a safe, peaceful place where Christmas doesn't have to be relentlessly cheerful.
• Christmas Service Party — Make the activity itself an outreach: assemble care packages, write cards for nursing-home residents, prepare gifts for shelter residents, or pack Christmas boxes while eating snacks and visiting.
• Bring-a-Friend Christmas Open House — No program at all. Decorate someone's home or the church fellowship area beautifully, serve appetizers and desserts, play Christmas music, and give women space to mingle. Sometimes the relationship is the ministry.

Members might also want to participate in the Share Your Table initiative using these ideas.