Below are tons of ideas to help make your Christmas Club a merry ol time. If you have any other ideas to share, please comment below.
Here is a sample schedule, each element is explained below or through a ‘link’ within the schedule.
Christmas Club
We usually start club at 7:37, but start this particular
event earlier to allow more time so it’s not rushed.
6:50-7:20- Pics with Santa/ Awkward Christmas Cards
7:20- Seniors form entry tunnel
7:22- Tonight, Yes, Tonight- Buddy the elf (host)
7:23- Christmas Medley (band)
7:26- 12 days of Christmas (mixer & song)
7:30- Mr. Christmas Tree Training Video
7:35- Mr. Tree group dance
7:40- Buddy the elf spaghetti game
7:44- Judges Panel introduced
7:45- Talent Competition
7:59- JibJab Elf head video
8:02- Announcements
8:04- Parade of Trees (Runway Script)
8:12- Contestant Interviews
8:16- Voting (tallied during talk)
8:19- Joy To The World
8:23- What Child Is This?
8:26- Intro Drew
8:28- Drew’s Talk
8:43- Crown Mr. Christmas Tree
8:48-exit music
Mr. Christmas Tree Pageant (MCTP)
Brian Summerall started doing Mr. Christmas Tree at Pearce
High School in Texas many years ago. You can read more about his vision for the
pageant on his website. Since then, the
idea has spread all over the country.
Many YL clubs have each grade nominate one guy to represent their class
in the pageant.
When we started doing it 5 years ago, we decided to make it a
senior guys competition. It’s created momentum and gave the
underclassmen something to look forward to when they became seniors. This year’s senior guys will
compete, many remembering their first ever MCTP they watched when they were freshmen. The last
few years we’ve had around 15-20 senior guys compete. Each of them brings
friends to club to ‘vote’ for them, so it typically is our highest attended
club of the year. Because of the
energy surrounding the event, we also make it the first night folks can sign up
for Crooked Creek, our summer camp trip.
*We also do a similar event, ‘The Ms. Valentines Pageant’
for the senior ladies in February.
Talent Competition
A fun way to get committee folks, teachers, coaches, and
former leaders involved is to ask them to serve on the MCTP Judges Panel.
If
you select one guy from each grade, or use 4-8 total guys, each guy could have
time to perform an individual talent like dancing, singing, silly tricks,
etc… In that case the judges panel could use this sheet from Brian Summerall
to help keep score.
If you have more than 8 guys, I’d recommend putting the guys
into ‘talent groups.’ Last year we had 4 groups of 4 guys.
You can decide if the panel determines the winner, or if you
vote by applause, text message, or by the audience each circling a name on a
ballot you pass out towards the end of the competition.
12 Days of Christmas Skit
Here’s a funny skit idea for 2 of the contestants to do together while the rest of the contestants sing the 12 Days of Christmas. It feels a little long so I might just do it once starting on the 12th day.
Parade of Trees
Summerall duct tapes actual trees to guys, which is
hilarious. We encourage guys to dress as tree, open to their own
interpretation. Some use actual tree branches taped to their body, some wear
ornaments, tinsel, star hats, popcorn strings, some dress in green and brown,
but every one of them is covered in strands of Christmas lights. After they walk
down the runway onto the stage, we have a couple of power strips where they
each can plug in their lights. (Some use battery packs)
During their runway walk we have an announcer reading a
funny ‘runway script.’ Each guy submits personal stats they would put on a
resume and we work together on making it funny. Here’s the script we used from a previous year. In the past I have asked the PA announcer at our high school
football games to come in and read the script in his awesome football announcer
voice.
Host/MC
We typically have someone dress up as ‘Buddy The Elf’ and
host the entire evening as sort of a Ryan Seacrest/Will Ferrell combo
character. It helps the flow of the
evening if one person is directing stage traffic.
Trophy
If possible, get last year’s Mr. Christmas Tree to return
home for this club to crown the new winner. Create an elaborate ‘sash and star
crown’ for the presentation. We’re doing this after the talk in order to give
time to tally the votes during the talk, and it’s a fun way to conclude the
evening.
Video
If you have a handful of contestants, each guy should make
their own ‘entry video’ or ‘training video.’ They could be practicing singing,
doing pushups, running bleachers, visiting a Christmas tree lot, painting
themselves green, duct taping branches on their bodies, drinking lots of egg
nog, etc…
If you’re using a lot of contestants, make one training video together. Here’s the video we made a previous year:
Here are some examples of videos from other clubs:
Decorations
Ask friends for BIG inflatables and borrow Christmas lights.
Click here for more details.
Songs
- Rudolph, Feliz Navidad, and Jingle Bells are good fast ones.
- ‘What Child is this?’ and ‘Silent Night’ are good slow ones.
- Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you”
is good background music for fillers and games. - “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” by N’Sync is a
must.
Games/Skits/Mixers/Extras
12 Days Of Christmas Song & Mixer
As a mixer, use the song “12 days of Christmas”
and divide your club into 6 groups. Group 1 will have “the 1st day of
Christmas and the 7th day of Christmas, Group 2 will have day 2 and day 8,
etc… Personalize the song to fit your club. Ex: If you took kids to Crooked
Creek and the program team used Skippy the fish, then you could change the
lyrics to: “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, Skippy
in a Crooked Creek.” Get creative.
Carol-Off
If you need a large group game you can play
“Encore” or “Sing-off” and have each class compete (team of
freshmen, team of sophs, etc…) to sing Christmas carols. If they repeat one
that has already been sung, they are out. This works pretty well if you have team
captains for each group.
Little Nemo Elf
The traditional “Little Nemo” skit works great
with Elves. It’s explained here.
Buddy The Elf Spaghetti Contest
Start it off by showing the clip from the movie Elf whereWill Ferrell eats spaghetti with maple syrup, marshmallows, m&ms, &
skittles. Then have a character come on stage dressed as an Elf. You can buy an
“elf shirt” lots of places like Walmart/Target or online at Elf Shirt
Purchase. Have “Buddy the Elf” come out with all the ingredients
mentioned above. You also need a tarp, towels for the kids to clean up with
afterwards, theme music to play in the background, and bowls. Have the kids
race to eat with their hands. Give out decent sized portions where a kid can
actually eat it all in a minute. If you put too much in there, it will take too long and be a dud.
JibJab
Create a JibJab video of your YL leaders heads on the bodies
of elves. You have to pay to download it, or you can just show it if you have
internet where you have club.
Awkward Family Christmas Cards
Pics With Santa
Invite a committee member or parent to dress up as Santa and
have kids get their pics taken with him. Invite another adult to take the pics
in order to free up leaders to be with kids. Lighting is key for good photos.
Chances are you have a parent or friend of YL in the community who loves
photography, has a sweet camera, and would love to do it for free.
Candy Canes
Pass them out before club. They’re cheap and festive.
Ugly Sweaters
Encourage kids to dress up in their ugliest Christmas
sweaters. Odds are, their moms probably have some sweet ones in the attic. If
not, a Goodwill trip is always great contact work.
Talk
Here are a few ideas thanks to Sean McGever and YLHelp.com.
What Christmas Club ideas can you add? Please comment below
or email me and I’ll add them to the post. Merry Christmas! -Drew
