Putting up Christmas lights gets me started thinking about our annual Christmas parent's night out. Parent's night out is a fundraiser our church does a couple times a year. It lasts from 6-11pm on a Friday night. We feed the kids dinner, have a devotion, play games, do crafts, have snack, do a scavenger hunt and always end the night with a game of Hide and Seek in the dark. Our Christmas one is a little different. It is free to the parents. Our gift to them, a free night without kids. We usually do a gift drive for local foster kids but they do no have to contribute to come.
Anyway, back to the Christmas lights and how that gets me thinking ahead. I always make the scavenger hunt relate to whatever our theme for the night is. However with up to 50 kids doing the scavenger hunt we have about 10 groups, so instead of clues they are given a list of things they must find hidden all over the church. I always to basically the same scavenger hunt at Christmas but they don't seem to get tired of it nor do I. We usually put up some new lights and the pack rat in me can't throw away those perfect boxes. Instead I gather pieces of a paper nativity (this year we are using a sticker one we ordered from Oriental Trading after Christmas last year when it went on clearance, yes, we have saved them all year :) ) cut them apart to put one piece in each box. I then wrap each of the teams in different Christmas wrapping paper (which I also stock up on after Christmas. Last year I got a lot at target for 20 cents a roll when it all went 90% off, the joys of having a sister working there). I hide the boxes throughout the church and give the team leader a sample of their paper. They must find all packages with their correct paper. After all packages are found they must return to the starting area, open the packages, assemble their nativity and clean up their mess before winning. Love it! So much fun.
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