Xmas fairs are hard work

[drizzletits]

Posting here for traffic

I'm on the School pta and the recent summer fete I've just helped to organise has been a huge success. Now moving onto the Xmas event and could really do with inspiration. What goes down well, other than raffle and tombolas....

Do something that tires children out- that's what most people are looking for, especially when it's cold and dark and running around the park doesn't appeal! Bouncy castle or similar is a winner.

Throw a wet sponge at a teachers face always went down well with my primary school aged children and their friends, particularly year 6

A chocolate stall, like a bottle stall but with chocolate. Our kids were allowed to 'come as you please' a few weeks earlier in exchange for a chocolate bar (doesn't matter what size). We then used them as prizes for the chocolate stall. Made a fortune.

You can't have a chocolate stall at school! How about a salad bar?

If it can't go in a lunch box it shouldn't be on the premises

Dry ice skating was a big draw at my kids school fete several years ago. The plot was set out on the schoolyard and not massively big but enough to have fun.

""If it can't go in a lunch box it shouldn't be on the premises""

So no, "guess how many sweets in the jar", either? My GD primary school fair has bottles of wine as raffle prizes.

Did you have face painting? Just Christmas/Winter theme everything.

It would be easy to get a reindeer costume (and warm for the wearer), or a naughty elf, who hits people with a candy cane etc.

The Elf could do a mini disco, were the children can do five minutes of dancing.

Think up some special hot drinks. Wrapped chocolate bars would be better than cakes, they are warming and travel well in bad weather.

Santa's grotto (utilise playhouse if they have one outdoors), petting reindeer hire, decorate Christmas cookie stall, bran tub lucky dip, mulled wine stall (non alcoholic if preferred), Christmas style treasure hunt, decorate an elf hat stall, make your own cracker stall (toilet roll holder, glitter, glue, paper snappers), Christmas photo both with props, design a Christmas bauble (trays of glue and glitter, roll cheap baubles in them, coloured string ribbon, paste on cut out images or do kids initials)... I'm obviously massively over invested in this thread 😂

Or style it as a 'Christmas Around The World' theme - set out different sections that showcase different countries and how children traditionally celebrate (it's also educational).... I'll pipe down now 😶

An Irish coffee stall and mince pies
A present wrapping room with gifts for mum dad grandparents that kids choose and wrapped
A room for xmas nails, rudolf face painting, glitter tattoos - anything Christmassy make over
Obviously a santa grotto

What brings me to the craft fair (which I would otherwise avoid) is the children’s crafts that they sell. Every class makes something. Usually it is a bauble for the Christmas tree. You find your child’s name and spare them the humiliation of being among the last few lonely unclaimed ones! Shameless but effective.

I love the book room. Always happy to have extra books.

I hate the tat rooms but the dc love nothing better than spending their pocket money on other people’s junk, and re-cluttering the de-cluttered playroom.

We get free tea and a mince pie but I would happily pay for these to support the school. Would love a glass of mulled wine but that always seems to be frowned upon at school fairs (though not at proper Christmas fairs)

I don’t want Santa’s grotto. Hard to avoid, always a terrible santa as it’s invaraibly the caretaker/headmaster/ parish priest dressed up. I always chose our santa visit carefully to preserve the magic.

I’d love a cute photo wall or photo booth.

I will cheerfully pay for poor quality face painting from school students

Don’t cram in too much as it has to be indoors for the weather.

Guess how many sweets/ Guess the weight of the cake are classics and take up no space.

If you have room for it - bean bag toss and cans. Charge £1 a go and give a 50p prize everytime or a token and when you get ten tokens you can exchange for a big prize. This is very compelling for dc whereas not winning puts small dc off very quickly.

Have a collection after Halloween for excess sweets and sell them back to the dc on a sweet stall at Christmas.

Story time or a puppet show would be great. Could run it every half hour.

Father Christmas - was always the only visit we did. Photos printed and into frame.

Guess the weight of the Christmas cake - though you need to charge a fair bit for this as the cost of ingredients is so high, which reduces the numbers.

Homemade preserves stall.
Jars of cookie/cake mixes.
Christmassy bunting.

All depends on your the skills of your pta.

Glitter tattoos?

Try and do something greener ?

We are doing a plant stall (bulb stall for xmas !)
Pre loved toys and toys
Pre loved nice women’s clothes (ie party dresses that are too small and large )

One stall we liked was snail racing ! In the lid of a plastic storage box the ones with ridges

Absolutely no face painting, sweet stalls, chocolate stalls, glitter tattoos, hook up a duck, burger stalls, mulled wine, book sellers, flossing competitions, nerf gun target shooting, or pomander making OP, because you don't normally see any of that in school. Hope this helps! Not sure about the aloe Vera stall though

Definitely a present wrapping room - the children pay to choose a present for their parents and have it wrapped there so they can choose a surprise.

Sell used books/toys/clothes.

Pin the tail (or nose) on the rudolf.

Silent disco
Christmas card making
Decorate your own gingerbread wo(man)
Bauble decorating
Crazy Christmas jumper competition

Santa Claus
Decorate a gingerbread man or Christmas shaped biscuit
Christingle orange making
Chocolate tombola
Present wrap room
Reindeer food
Hot snacks
Pin the nose on Rudolph
Tattoos
Lucky dip

We do lots of what others have already mentioned and our biggest other than Santa, as we don't really make of it as it all goes back into what the children get, is the chocolate tombola stall. Kids get a dress down down in exchange for bringing in chocolate. Also wine to water. A load of win bottles all wrapped in newspaper. Some full of water and others a full wine bottle. Does very well with parents lol

Chocolate stall always went down well in DS primary school.
Each kid donated chocolate in exchange for a non uniform day.
Then it was run like a tombola...

They do iy for bottles too.. And at Easter an Easter egg one after school on last day of term.
Always sold out.. Always made tonnes of money

We do a jar tombola. Every child decorated an empty jam jar and fills it with something e.g sweets, Lego, rubbers, stickers and then you get the number jar of the raffle ticket you pull out of the hat.

Dry skating is horrible.
Our school gave up on Xmas fayre, too much work!

There is one game I quite like. Get lots of different coloured straws and poke them through the lid of a box or something so one end is hidden. In each straw underneath the surface stuff a raffle ticket in. The number on the straw must coincide with the number on the prize to win. Basically tombola but with straws instead.

Bran tub/lucky dip, chocolate lolly tree, hampers, guess the weight of the X, teddy bear names etc all are winners too

We always have one classroom full of 20p games. Throw the beanbag into (cardboard) Santa's mouth, candy cane pull (put a bit of coloured tape on every third one then bury them in the infants sand tray, if you pull the coloured one you keep it), sweeties in the jar and guess the bear's birthday.