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Christmas Youth group Ideas

There are tons of ways we can engage and encourage our young people to celebrate with us this Christmas. Here are a few creative ways to celebrate Christmas with your youth group this year:

Zoom Christmas Party

Each Year, we have a Christmas Party at our youth group. Now this year, that isn’t possible, but why not move it online? There are lots of party games that you can play on Zoom, including Charades, Pictionary, Mafia, Kingdoms, Bring Me and more! You could have prizes ready in advance, and drop off the prizes to the winners after the party. Alternatively, you could order a prize for them on Amazon, or from a food delivery service!
If you wanted to make the party more interesting, you could theme it, and encourage young people to come dressed ready for the occasion. For example, a formal event, pyjama party, or even a fancy dress nativity!

Christmas Craft Kits

This could be something you do in preparation for a Zoom meeting or something you distribute as a Christmas gift for your young person. Put together a Christmas themed craft kit for your young people, and drop them off at their houses.
There are lots of printable Christmas Crafts, and you can be as creative as you like when putting these together. You can also buy ready-made kits – one of the retailers that we use a lot for craft activities is Baker Ross, but there are plenty of other places you could source craft activities from.
Here is a great website with some Christmas Craft ideas:

Christmas Zoom Quiz

This suggestion is pretty self-explanatory! Host a mega Christmas Quiz on Zoom! Ensure that you have a fantastic prize lined up, it could be a hamper, voucher or the promise of a delivery (In Lincoln, Kaspa’s do a fantastic waffle delivery, so find something similar near you!), and get ready to challenge your youth.
It is worth remembering that some young people might be playing in family units if they share a laptop, so you will need to make sure that it is fair for your youth group. For extra fun, throw in a silly booby prize for last place. After this year, a hand sanitiser, soap or toilet roll could suffice!

Christmas Youth Group Playlist

Spotify Playlists can be a great way to bring your youth group together, even if you cannot meet together. Ask all of your youth to send you a list of their top 5 Christmas songs, and create a Spotify Playlist. Once you have created it, make it public, and share the link with all of your youth group!

Youth Group Secret Santa

A Secret Santa is a great way of making sure that all of your youth receive a small gift at Christmas! This one will require some effort on your part, as you will need to collect and distribute all of the gifts, but it is definitely worth it.
I would strongly recommend setting a small budget for this, perhaps £1-£2, to ensure that no young person is excluded. You could also encourage young people to make a gift if they are unable to buy one.

Reading Plan

The Bible App reading plans are a fantastic way to read the Bible together as a youth group. Perhaps in the week running up to Christmas, you could start a week-long reading plan together? The Bible App has space at the end of each day to share your thoughts on the reading. We have done this with our young people before, and it is so encouraging and insightful to see what God is speaking to our young people about through His word.
The other great thing about the Bible App is that it is totally free, and accessible to all young people who have access to a phone or computer!

Christmas gift

Young people love to receive something to unwrap, so why not drop off gifts to your youth group before Christmas? This doesn’t have to be an expensive gift, but a selection pack or chocolate bar wrapped up can be a nice surprise for them to receive at Christmas!
Top tip: Include a printout or leaflet from your church about what is happening over Christmas with the gift! Include links, QR codes and sign up information so that they are able to engage with the different festive activities happening at your church!

Festive Competitions (ie baking, photo challenge etc)

There are lots of festive challenges or mini-competitions you could run between those in your youth group. For example, the best-dressed tree, the funniest Christmas Cake, the biggest gingerbread house, the silliest Christmas outfit for example. Ask your young people to send in their pictures, and be ready to award a winner!

Christmas Photo Bingo

Set your young people a challenge to take as many festive photos as possible, and have a competition for the best photos! Photo bingo is great fun, as it encourages young people to be creative and to explore their local area to find the items on the list.
I have created a Christmas Photo Bingo document for you. Feel free to use this, or to use it as inspiration to make your own.

Virtual Cookie Decorating Party

This one is another zoom activity, but with a twist: A Virtual Cookie Decorating Party!
There are two ways to prepare for this in advance:
  1. Create small decorating kits for each young person and drop them off to their houses in advance of the meeting.
  2. Send a shopping list to the young people one week before the meeting, and ask them to buy their own cookies and decorations.
During the video call, encourage the young people to decorate their cookies. You could have several themes, or mini-contests for them during your time together. You could also weave a Christmas themed conversation into the meeting too if you wanted to.

Zoom Prayer and Communion

Our final idea for you is to host a Zoom Youth Prayer and Communion session. As we draw to the end of 2020, encourage your young people to pray over each other and for the year ahead. Spend some time reflecting on what Christmas is all about, and take communion together virtually.
Make sure you let the young people know in advance so that they can bring some bread and juice to the meeting!
I hope that some of these ideas have inspired you to celebrate Christmas with your young people this year! It might look different from normal, but we can still have lots of fun together, celebrating the birth of Jesus!
Let us know your ideas, what are you doing over this festive season with your young people?

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