Just wanted to know what you all are planning for the Christmas holidays for you church.
I also wanted know more about this "open house fellowship." I think someone here told me about opening your house all day (maybe from 10 am-5pm), and allowing your members to stop by for refreshments and fellowship. This is supposed to work especially if you have a small home, that will not accommodate everyone at the same time. Do any of you remember telling me about this type of Christmas fellowship?
If so, how do you plan something like this??? What do you print on the invitations??? How do you ensure the same people won't stay all day??? What types of refreshments???
We have several things for our church. First, we have the pastor/staff/board banquet. That is always at a restaurant. We make it somewhere different every year. This is only adults - no kids.
Then I have a Christmas open house at my home for all leadership - staff, board, and ministry leaders and their families. Kids come to this as well. It's A LOT of people. I do this at my home the second Sunday night of the month. I'm a real hospitality nut, so I pull out all the stops -- make all my best appetizers/desserts/punch, and have the place decked out. It's a few hours long and normally we don't have to worry about people staying too late. Larry and I are night people so we are up later than they are, and it never bothers us that a few linger. Actually when they do, it helps me get things cleaned up. Usually a few ladies who are very faithful help me with that. This is really one of the highlights of Christmas for me - I love my open house. This year I'm especially excited because of all the work we just did on our home.
Other than that our church has various parties for different ministries - men, women, kids, youth, etc.
