Dare I say .... Christmas. What are your plans for your Daycare Xmas Party?

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Originally Posted by gcj

HOORAY! I full on party it is. I have all awesome families and like to show my appreciation as well. I know what you mean about it seeming like a big affair. I find all daycare "parties" are like that. It's really minimal in a way, but in the kids eyes, it's a huge deal!

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Glad to hear. To many people seem to have had bad experiences so don't bother with anything now. Seems that most think that its to much like hard work from what I have read on other threads. I can understand this to a certain degree but its a real shame.

Just a note to add also, having the parents at the party makes it that much easier as they have to supervise and interact with their own child/children. I make this very clear when I hand the invitation to them and if they decide not to at the party, then unfortunatly for them, they are going to hear me say in front of everyone that they need to deal with their child. If you can't chit chat and care sufficiently for your child at the same time, then stop chit chatting :)

this will be my 5th Christmas party with parents. I've always had full participation except for 1 last year. But that was my lack of judgment ever taking that girl on. Not because of the party, of course, but just not a match. The parents have always loved it and showed their appreciation. My only reason for questioning it was due to my kids being in school now....but I guess it's not time to get lame just because they're at school! :p

gcj, let me know if you come up with any cute ideas for party activities. I like to change it up each year :)

I'll probably play a matching game. I make up cards with Christmas related pictures and basically play "pick a gift" like at showers. We do one round picking from the pile, then one round trading with a friend. It ends up being the same gift ($ store type thing) wrapped differently. Also some kind pin the nose on Santa or something. Oh! We've done a snowball race in the past...parents vs kids. They wear big mitts and have to pick up as many fake snowballs and put them in a bucket. It's a team thing, so kids in one line & parents in another...then we recite a concert that we work on for weeks. It's really cute! I do love it! uh oh...I'm getting excited!

I have the entire month of Dec. set aside for Christmas crafting and stories and songs. The week before Christmas we have a birthday girl here, but we also have one day for our annual pj party and we always make special cookies. Another day we have our Grinch party and watch the movie and the children dress up as the Lou Who's and I'm the grinch right down to green clothes and green eyeshadow all over my face, hehe.

The children always make a big container and fill it over the month with presents for their parents and they put that under their tree so that they have something to give. I like teaching them the Christmas is about giving.

Small Marshmellows could be Snow Man poop! LMAO the kids love it!

Last year I purchased little fake trees at the dollar store. I also bought a lot of tiny decorations there too (scrapbooking). I put all the decorations in a bowl and each day of December the kids could put one decoration on their assigned tree. A week before Christmas I let them take it home. They trees looked amazing and the kids were so proud of them. It cost a little more but it was so worth it.

I don't do a big party as my gang is small and well usually half of them aren't able to do much for games etc. We spread Christmas out over the month and do more crafts - make simple ornament type stuff alternate days which I keep here and pictures to colour to go home - they colour waiting for their turn to do craft. I get baskets from the dollar store and put a christmas tea towel or cloth of some sort in the bottom and then their crafts. I add in a few extra ones from me I have made just for them and a few candies, candy canes, etc. and this is sent home a few days before Christmas. It gives me the freedom to vary it each year and go with the flow and age/time restrictions - not to mention costs.

We do some baking in daycare and they get to take some home. I used to offer some to parents at pick up but too many moms on diets who politely refused which hurt the kids feelings so too bad I'll eat them all my self then - kind of the little red hen in reverse, lol.

I throw a party in the afternoon for the kids and their parents. Because its in the afternoon I usually only get one or two parents though. A couple weeks before I have the kids draw a name for a Secret Santa gift. Everyone buys a gift around the $20.00 mark and we open them at the party. We also play some games and do a Christmassy craft. For food I do it as simple as possible-- I order a cake and then set out some finger goods (veggies and dip, pita bread and hummus, that kind of thing) The hit of the party is the Secret Santa the kids love opening a present early.

Forgot to add that a big hit last year was that my daycare families and I adopted a local family fo Christmas Sharing. After getting agreement from all of them that they wanted to participate ( I didn't want anyone to feel like it was a burden pushed on them), I signed us up for a family in need and assigned each family some food to bring and told them the ages of the children in case they wanted to donate anything extra. They were all very generous and brought the food they were supposed to plus more, and also donated gift cards from Walmart and Toysrus. The dc kids were excited to see the donation box filling up.When my husband and I dropped it off the family was so thankful. It all went very well and I hadn't even thought about it until this thread came along and made me think about Christmas and how I need to set this up again, so Thanks!