On December 18th, we had our annual “core” staff party and meal! The core staff include the cooks, the security guards, our medical staff, our school teachers, our yard workers, our program managers, our pastor, and our mission leaders. (It doesn’t include our orphanage workers or part-time employees, as they have their own parties!)
It was SO MUCH fun to decorate this year because we finally had electricity – so we could do it all up right! Malaya and I spent 2 days getting everything ready. She also made her famous cookies which included a clear “sugar glass” tree in the middle of them. That girl is so creative!
We set the tables for 36 people, not including any of our own family!
PARTY SET-UP
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BUFFET STYLE FOOD
Everyone got a HUGE heaping plate of food! Anything they didn’t eat, they were able to take home with them!
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GAME-TIME
We spent over 90 minutes playing games, and could have easily gone another hour! We had SO MUCH fun laughing and watching each other play!
DROP CUP – The first game we played was Drop Cup. There were cups attached to the table and each one had a different amount of money in them. You have to bounce the ball into the cup in order to win.
BUCKET ROLL – The next game involved dice and buckets with balloons. Since there are 6 numbers on the dice, we had buckets labeled 1-6. There were 2 sets of buckets. If you rolled a 3 – then you had to decide which #3 bucket you wanted. One bucket had a great prize in it, and the other bucket had a gag gift not worth anything.
You wait until all 12 buckets are chosen. Then you call up the 2 people who had bucket #1. They pop the balloon at the same time to see WHO chose the bucket with the money in it! We played this game over and over again until all 36 people had a chance! (Malaya and I were secretly refilling the buckets after each round).
JINGLE BELL ROLL – For this game you label the table from 1 to 6. The number 6 is the furtherest away from you. Each person tries to roll a jingle bell all the way down the table WITHOUT rolling it off the edge. The prizes are better the further down the table you go. But if it rolls off, you don’t win anything.
HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES AND BOWS- For this game we had 3 pairs play each round. Only one person in each pair can win. Between each pair we have a bowl with 4 different colored bows. You yell out “head, shoulders, or knees” as many times as you want and in any order. Then at some point you yell out the color of a bow. Once you say the color, each pair has to bend down and grab the correct colored bow before their opponent does. Whoever gets the bow first wins.
Christmas Random Plate Draw – For this game we taped string on the bottom of plates and then stuck each string into a cup that was in the center. There are different amounts of money in each of the bags on the plates. Each person pulls a string from the cup and whichever plate is pulled close to them, that’s the prize they win. If they pull a plate that is empty (because it was already chosen) then they don’t win anything. **However, we wanted everyone to win so we made sure after the last person played, that we passed out the remaining bags to everyone who lost.
Secret Santa Guess- Everyone drew a name at Thanksgiving. We gave each of them money to purchase a gift for the name they drew. Two days before the party, each person guessed who they thought had their name. The REVEAL of who guessed correctly was the last thing we did. If you guessed correctly, you won a prize. If you guessed incorrectly, the person who drew your name won!
There were 9 people who guessed correctly! They won a special prize. But everyone walked away with something because those who weren’t guessed correctly – also won a smaller gift for keeping the secret!
We started the party at 7pm. We had 5 other games ready to be played but it was already 11pm and it was time for folks to go home! It was such a wonderful night! The year before we didn’t have electricity so that party was short and we weren’t able to play a lot of games. But this year – we rocked the night away with food, fellowship, and fun!
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