7 Excellent Christmas Party Ideas For Your Workplace

November 4, 2019

As a season of celebrations, Christmas is the traditional season for team-building events. Take advantage of the season to reinforce the bond between your team members. This can help you amp up your employees’ productivity and efficiency cost-effectively, as workplace relationships are a key determinant of employee engagement.

Not sure about how much to budget and what activities to line up for your company’s Christmas party? We’ve compiled a list of 7 unforgettable workplace Christmas party ideas you can turn to. These ideas won’t cost you a fortune, but they’ll most likely increase your company’s bottom line. The ideas are quite refreshing, enlivening, and stimulating. With these events, your employees will forget about every care in life and just give into the spirit of the fun.

1. Pool Ideas from Team Members

Your Christmas party will be absolutely memorable when you allow team members decide the features of the event. Let everyone contribute to the planning process. You can gather inputs from everyone using surveys and questionnaires. Ask them about foods, drinks, costumes, location, games, themes, and other elements of the event. Let everyone vote on which ideas to incorporate based on the available resources. Even if many of them will not get their way at the end of the day, they’ll feel chuffed to have been given a say. The majority who voted for various ideas will also be thrilled to see their ideas materialise.

2. Explore Group Outings

Rolling out your Christmas party ideas at the work premises may not be a good idea, as it could make it a bit challenging for your employees to detach themselves from work mode to catch fun.

You can host your Christmas party in a different scenery in a cost-effective manner. You can take your employees out for a group drink, bowling, lunch/dinner, comedy shows, escape room games, etc. It’s also advisable to carry out a mix of activities during the outing to carry everyone along. For instance, those who don’t enjoy drinking may get their dose of fun skiing, bowling, or gobbling sumptuous delicacies.

3. Christmas Cruise

One of the best places to host a corporate Christmas party is near the beach, or better yet, on the sea. Take your team members off shore on a cruise, where they’ll get to enjoy themselves on the backdrop of the spectacular ocean view. Afterwards, hold an afterparty on the beach with another set of events like beach Olympics, etc. It won’t be too much fun in a day.

4. Fun and Games Galore

The aim of Christmas party ideas is to allow your team members have a swell time away from work, so you need to throw in lots of games into the agenda. Divide team members into different groups and let them square off against each other for a top prize. Get them screaming, laughing, and moaning together, letting their real selves shine through. Incorporate games that stimulate the intellect and emotions and also uphold your corporate values. Think of trivia, games, gingerbread house, etc.

5. Springing Surprises

Who doesn’t like pleasant surprises? Bombard your team with surprises at various points throughout the party. Introduce intriguing games at different intervals during the party. A raffle draw that rewards some of your most hardworking employees might be met with electrifying screams and cheers. Use something highly enticing and memorable for the raffle ticket, including gifts, food items, etc. What about a short cooking competition where random team members are chosen to prepare quick meals for the whole team? Gourmets who brag a lot about their culinary repertoire may find themselves in hot waters as their culinary skills are put to a real test.

6. Explore Gift Exchanges

Your Christmas party ideas will not be well-rounded if they don’t incorporate the sharing of gifts between team members. Christmas is generally a season of sharing, so your team members will be more inclined to dole out gifts to one another now. They don’t have to break a bank to buy memorable gifts for each other.

You can set the tone of the gift exchange, stipulating the category of items that should count. A home-made dish or cookie is a lovely gift item for everyone to exchange among themselves. How about gifts that can only be used at home and not the office? Another great idea for gift exchange is to pool all the gifts together and then give them out randomly to team members based on a draw or through specific rules. Alternatively, you can send everyone’s pool of gifts to a charity, and this brings us to our last Christmas party idea.

7. Volunteering and Community Service

Volunteering is one of the most effective ways to strengthen bonds in any relationship. When people work together to resolve a specific problem without getting any rewards in return, they tend to develop stronger bonds and set aside their differences between themselves.

After some fun and games in the Christmas party, take your team members out to give back to the society. You can ask them to bring food, clothing, and other gift items for homeless children. You can also take them out to build shelters for abandoned animals and homeless people. Afterwards, finish off the day with a group drink or dinner.

Set Up an Unforgettable Christmas Party this Year

This list of Christmas party ideas has something for everyone regardless of their budget, organisational values, and personalities of team members. They aren’t just about spending money and spoiling your employees, but about creating the necessary environment for your employees to have a good time and see the other sides of their team-members. You can choose to use just one of these ideas, or you can combine many of them. To make sure the event has the desired impact on your employees, bounce the ideas on them and incorporate their opinions into the planning process. After all, the event will be hosted on their honour. You need to make them realise they’re the stars of the show.