Youth Christmas Party

Every year the leaders of the youth group host a fun Christmas Party for the teenagers which includes a White Elephant (gag gift) exchange.  Four years ago when it was my first year helping with the youth, I suggested we do a Progressive Dinner and caroling.  It was so much work that we haven't done it since.  I dug-up some pictures from 2010. 

LOOK at Dan's hair!  Gaah

The youth group has gone through a lot of changes since then and we've found simple is better and the teenagers don't even seem to notice the difference in effort.

This year it was a total throw together last minute up-cycled event.  Dan and I reused all the decorations from the church party the previous week.

We had six teens attend - all guys.  We did a bunch of minute-to-win-it type of games that involved throwing marshmallows and timed competition.  They all seemed to have a good time except we ran out of food in the first 45 minutes.  Teenage boys are bottomless pits.

Dan did a short devotion about the real Santa and the importance of generosity.

I love my preacher man.

We did our white-elephant gift exchange.

And ended with a spirited game of musical chairs.

Overall a successful event and I'm always surprised by how little difference it makes to guys what the decorations are like or what amount of time went into planning thoughtful activities.  We probably could have ordered them each a pizza and let them play on their phones 3 hours and they would have loved it just the same.

One funny thing was we forgot to get a prize for the winning team so Dan just gave each of them a $1 bill.  Man alive they freaked out over that $1.  They all acted like it was $50.  Teens.