Activity Days Favorite Things Party – Year 2

We did it again.  Click here and here for a detailed plan of how to carry out a Christmas gift swap “Favorite Things Party” for a group of girls or teens.  We invited all of our Activity Day girls, which means we had girls 8-11 years old.

Here’s the invite for this year.  Look familiar?  I went with what worked and Hobby Lobby had the exact same gift tags for sale so I snatched them up, changed the date, clarified the instructions and they were ready to go.  Note the change in information we gave them this time:

1.  food was changed to include appetizers (thanks for  bringing the cheeseball and fruit plate, Ava and Sharrai – they were both almost gone at the end of the activity).

2.  we also specified that we wanted only 4-6 servings because there was WAY TOO MUCH FOOD last year.  Specifying the quantity definitely helped.  We had plenty to go around but not too much.

The girls did a good job of being creative in the food they brought – swirls and snowmen, hand-dipped chocolates and Oreo pie.  Lots of different treats and foods to share and feast on.  They are getting better at this party!

For our lesson, we showed this age-appropriate but meaningful video, (The Reason Behind Christmas – Mormon Message)  talked about how each person in the video committed to giving a service for Christmas.

Then we asked each girl to follow the video example and share a service they were going to give this Christmas.

“This year for Christmas I am going to….”

They then gave their gift to the person who’s name they drew from “the hat.”  Once it was opened, the giver shared why it was their favorite.  Before we started giving, we practiced how to be a good receiver and encouraged the girls to say, “Thank you!  I love it!” to the giver.

Keeping the giving moving along was my job and with over 30 girls there, it was important to move quickly through each person and to remind the girls as time passed to show respect for one another, even if they have already received their gift.  The lesson and gifting took  about 50 minutes, then we spent about 25 minutes sharing about the food we brought and tasting each other’s treats.

With almost all of our girls attending, we’ve proven once again that the Favorite Things Party is always a hit.  I get a lot of traffic to last year’s Favorite Things Party posts so I hope that many of you are running with this idea.  Let me know how it goes so we can share ideas together!

Merry Christmas!