Christmas Enrichment ideas

Gift Swap
A few weeks before Enrichment Night pass out brown lunch sacks to all of the
sisters to decorate at home. Sisters will then fill their bag with whatever gifts she
would like to give. At Enrichment Night every sister who brings a filled,
decorated bag then gets to select another bag to take home. Every bag will be
different so its contents will be a fun surprise. The giver remains anonymous
unless you want each sister to include a little note inside with a special Christmas
message that identifies who she is. You might want to suggest a maximum
budget to be spent on the contents.

“Secret Sisters”
One month before the Christmas Relief Society Enrichment party have the
sisters pick each other’s names out of a hat to determine who will be a “Secret
Sister” for whom. During the next few weeks the sisters can do all kinds of
anonymous service and make little gifts for the sister whose name she picked out
of the hat. You may want to establish certain guidelines that limit the dollar
amount of spending to encourage sisters to be more creative and so it won’t be a
financial burden. At the Christmas party all of the Secret Sisters will reveal
themselves to each other. Often times there will be sisters who go all out while
other sisters don’t do very much. Be sure that it is a voluntary experience so that
only the sisters who really get excited about this idea will participate, while
others who don’t want to do it can gracefully slip out.

“Calendar Creator”
Give each sister a collection of 12 Relief Society stickers for her to put on her
calendars for the new year to remind them what dates Enrichment Night
will be held.

“Keeping Christ in Christmas”
In all your preparations for the holidays, help sisters focus on the birth of Christ and the reason for the season. Share ideas on how to help children focus on Christ and center Christmas Eve and Christmas Day activities around the Savior. Make costumes for families to recreate the Nativity story in the scriptures.

Christmas Cards
Share ideas on great Christmas cards the sisters can make that center on the Savior and their families. Collect old Christmas cards and mail the front to St. Jude’s Ranch. They remake them, and use the profits to help sick children. This can also be a great project to start in January.

Bookmarks
Distribute appealing bookmarks for the sisters’ Relief Society manual. The
bookmark could have the Relief Society statement on it or the dates and themes
for next year’s Enrichment Nights or even a list of next year’s Sundays with
which lesson will be taught that day.

Progressive dinner
If your ward boundaries include your church building you could either begin or
end at the building. Hopefully you’ll get lucky and find some sisters who live
within walking distance to one another so you can have sisters walk to each house
after each course. You can have separate houses for hors‘deourves, soup, salad,
entrée, and dessert. You may want to limit house visits to just three homes if
they’re located farther away. If none of the sisters live close enough to each other
to make it practical you could host a traveling dinner by using and decorating
different rooms in your church building.

Ornament exchange
Find out ahead of time how many sisters would like to participate in this project.
Everyone makes the same number of home-made ornaments and then exchanges
them with the others in the group. Have sisters share favorite Christmas
memories or talk about any sentimental value they have with certain ornaments.

“Christmas Around the World”
Focus on international décor, food, music and learning. Have returned missionaries
tell about the foreign country where they served, and display items. Don’t forget to
include the United States!

Caroling
Choose several homes or neighborhoods your sisters could visit together and sing a selection of Christmas carols. Bring plates of cookies to give away and have everyone wear Christmas colored clothing and Santa hats. Give copies of music selections so the sisters can take them home and plan a caroling evening with their families in their own neighborhoods.

“It’s The Thought That Counts”
Offer a fun workshop full of min-classes on how to make attractive gift baskets, cookie bouquets, inexpensive gift ideas, gifts from the kitchen, card making, gifts children can make, how to ship presents so they don’t break in the mail, home-made wrapping paper ideas, how to teach children gratitude, and thank you card ideas. Be sure to offer a lesson that all sisters attend that encourages them to focus their holiday efforts on Christ.