How many games/awards do you do

[pookie]

I am doing my first CE on Sunday. I was planning on 7 games/awards. How many do you typically do?

[Marci L]

Normally I do three gift baskets that I shop for throughout the yr looking for super sale items.

This year I'm adding to that (since my crowd is getting bigger!) and I have a basket of small dollar store gifts, and I borrowed some of the Christmas trivia questions from the "games" thread. Every 10 minutes or so, I will ring a bell and have a pop quiz with one question, the first one to yell the answer gets a prize. If two women call it out at once, then we go into sudden death with a tougher question.

I also have a parting gift for each lady, a christmas ornament with a tag that says thank you for coming. I also got these on super sale!

[paulapea]

This year I did two games (the left/Right one with the Twas the night before Christmas was a HUGE hit...lots and lots of giggling) and you can't say cookie game (The gist of it was...I handed out 3 clothespins per person and for a set time...30 minutes, you couldn't say cookie and if you did, whoever caught you could steal your clothes pin!, whoever had the most won!) I did this WHILE they were sampling...lol...it was fun!
My prize categories were:

Golden Spoon (best cookie, voted on by guests)
Silver Spoon (2nd best cookie, voted on by guests)

Golden Bow (best wrapping as we did prepackaged cookies)
Silver Bow (2nd best wrapping)

Most Festiviely Dressed

Most Ingredients Used
Fewest Ingredients Used

I basically gave away about 15 prizes, which sounds like a lot, but I did some creative shopping and really the most I spent was $5 (which was for the two hard back Taste of Home Cookie and Baking Cookbooks), another favorite prize was my wrapping paper emergency kit, I had found some $1 wrapping paper at Target, some bows, tags (I made the tags to match), scotch tape..those were a HIT...I had 3 of those...they were the first to go... Candles were another hit...

How I distributed the prizes was as people "won" I had them pick out a piece of paper out of a basket with a # on it, then at the end of the party I had them come up in # order and let them choose their prize...this way they got to go home with something they wanted! Worked out really well...

For their parting gift from me, I made recipe books of all the recipes at the party...

So there you have it...LOL...it was a blast, I had a great time hostessing...although I was wiped out afterwards...LOL

[pookie]

Thank you this helps me a lot. I was planning on doing the right left game where everyone would end up with an orniment. First to arrive, guess the # of candy kisses in the jar, Christmas show trivia game, most creative packaging, reindeer antler game, most festive atire. Since this is my first time doing this I figure I can always add to this or mix it up year to year. I crocheted some dish cloths and scrubbies, found some cookie sented shower gels on sale, and some other kitchen goodies. For a parting gift I will have reusable shoping bags and a booklet of all the recipes exchanged. I would like to do homemade cocoa and mugs but I think that is just going to be too much for me the first time around...maybe next year....I might be able to get some great sales of mugs this year.

I like the gift basket ideas and may do that next year. Iwill have to stalk the sales this year for next year.

[liz]

Regarding games....It was difficult to figure out who answered the answers first, when questions were given at the party, so now I send the questions with a theme included in the invitation. Past years was a treasure hunt in the grocery store, Hooray for Hollywood questions and this year is "whats in a name" questions regarding each guest, in which they will have to call each of the guests for their answers. First place is a Longaberger cookie basket. (e-bay!) Guests will get tickets for every correct answer upon arrival, and they have to have their answers and recipe to me one week before. This way I can have their tickets ready and make a booklet out of all the recipes which they can take home with them when they leave.
I do a quick game: Who lives closest, who lives farthest, who is the youngest, who is the oldest, first cookie exchange?...these are candy bar or wooden spoon gifts.
This year I am also challenging guests to make superb cookies, requiring at least 2", and voting on the best cookie, which will be rewarded with a trophy of a chef holding a rolling pin, and engraved with "2010 Best Cookie" "Congratulations"
I also do a "white elephant" optional gift exchange for guests to recycle a nice gift or purchase a gift of any value. Everyone I believe loves this game, and there are always a lot of nice things that are given away.
This is the only party I do all year, so I get very excited about doing all of the things that I do...7 years now!!!

[GirlyGirlzMom]

I make sure everyone leaves with at least one prize. I give prizes for Best Theme Dressed, Best Display and Most Festive Christmas Cookie. We will play about 3 or 4 games that prizes will be awarded to. I also do a Big Cookie Game at the end where each person gets tickets for things like, wearing themed outfit, making Christmas cookies, number of ingredients in cookies, toenails painted red, etc and have a drawing for a cookie jar. We will also have a Chinese Auction where i bought tons of little gifts to be given away. We also do a kitchen gadget gift exchange. Everyone leaves with a cookie cutter each year to add to their collection.