‘Tis the season for holiday parties!
The holiday season is a magical time of year. Neighbors young and old get to gather together and many communities are fortunate to have residents from many diverse backgrounds. But no matter your background, one thing people have in common is that the next few months are for celebrating our families, helping others, and being grateful for life.
Board members might be hesitant to try to put together celebrations for the holidays because of the fear of leaving out a part of their community. But, there are many events a board can host for the next few months to participate in the holiday season while including all their residents, no matter what their background is. Today, Vesta has pulled together some popular ideas that any board can plan to help their community celebrate this season.
- Donation Drive
One event a board can plan for the holiday season is hosting a donation drive for a local charity. The holiday season is a time of giving so residents will be happy to help however they can. Depending on the charity your board is hosting the drive for, you can ask for toys, clothes, canned foods, and other items.
- Volunteer Event
Your board can organize with another local charity, like the food bank or soup kitchen, to organize a volunteer day for your residents to participate together in. Your board could even rent a bus or van so that everyone can travel together or in groups.
- Holiday Cook-Off
Select a venue, such as your community’s clubhouse or other common area, and host a holiday cooking contest! Have residents bring their favorite home-cooked dish and let them vote on who’s is the best. This would also be a great way to reduce the costs of hosting the party since the residents will be bringing the food.
- Holiday Round Robin
This would be an open-house kind of event. Prior to the actual event, have residents that want to participate sign up to open their homes to the other residents for a brief amount of time. The family in the first time-slot provide an appetizer, the second family having the first course, and so on. If you have a large community, consider having families double up on time slots to help ease the burden of preparing dishes. This is another great cost saving event and there could be a decorating contest intertwined into this as well!
- Carnival
A great idea for communities with lots of children is to host a carnival! The board can rent bounce houses, casino style games for the adults, yard games, face painting, and craft projects that are sure to entice all the children and adults in the neighborhood of all ages to come participate.
