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....

Years ago I used to help a friend organise her kids school Xmas fair. We did several things but the 3 most successful were:

1. From September to the week before the fair, we held a weekly Crafty Morning at my friend's house. Each week she & I would organise the making of a crafty Christmas item, so we'd plan, shop for the extra bits required, even cut out things to speed up the process etc. Then on the day whoever turned up helped make whatever it was we were making. (It was free to attend, and got quite popular so we did an evening session a few times too). It was about 25-30 years ago so can't quite recall all the things we made, but it was things like tree ornaments from felt, bows to decorate parcels, Christmas Stockings, various household items like peg bags, pot holders, welly boot pegs (decorated) , keyrings, we once had a candle making supplies person donate HEAPS so made loads of those too, we also made soap, and bath salts and packaged them seasonally. We got a LOT of stuff donated as we asked for fabric, glue, crafty bits etc, so we'd decide from the things we were gifted what to make. All got sold on the craft stall at the fair, and the really nice thing was that the craft group really got in the swing of it and enjoyed it so much they did the same for the summer fair. b) made a grotto from the cheap voile fabric, decorated with all the christmas decorations, got a Father Christmas and helpers, but rather than 1 big queue, we sold timed tickets in the playground during the week before. It meant people turned up to see FC and browsed the stalls around their time, but didn't spend the whole fair time 'in the queue' as there was no queue. We reckon spending went up about 30% because what do you do for the 15 minutes before your Santa time? It also meant the fair wasn't packed at the beginning and nobody other than in the queue in the last hour. If I were doing this today, I'd see if there was anyone handy with a decent camera and had a photo printer of the type to do 8x5 photos, we've a lovely HP one, and you can get the photo paper cheaply every now and then in Aldi. I'd take photos and flog them off in the playground during the week after if I couldn't print them quick enough on the day (you'd need someone in charge of the printing) - reckon that at £5 each a good photo would go down well with the grandparents. I'd also get the craft people to collect up old photo frames and paint/decorate them and cut out suitably sized mounts to suit the 8x5 photos.
2. we had a Christmas Cake bake off for the best decorated - had some lovely yule logs, gingerbread houses (in the days you could not buy a kit) and imaginatively decorated cakes. We awarded to the top few and auctioned the cakes off to the highest bidder - we had a book and people put their name down and overbid the previous person bidding for that cake. Whole thing was VERY competitive not only for the bakers but also for who was going to pay the most for the best cake, you'd see the Smiths trying to out trump the Jones for a particular cake. And all this was before Bake-off. (Luckily in a relatively affluent area not sure this would work as well if you didn't have the local estate agent trying to outbid the solicitor he obviously knew well)

We do:
Chocolate tombola
Gift tombola (both tombolas the kids get dress down in exchange for bringing the items in, KS1 do chocolate, KS2 do gifts)
Tattoos
Face painting
Cake stall
Raffle (things donated from local businesses)
Decorate a biscuit
Burgers, hotdogs (meat from local butcher) and drinks including hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream
Throwing beanbags through a hole
We've previously had hook a duck
Arts and crafts room
Some kind of treasure hunt or mini quiz where the kids have to walk round the school to find the answer
Santas grotto (year six are elves)
Sweet stall (usually prepacked penny sweets in a bag or we've had glass jars)
Pick a present off the tree (lots of little gifts wrapped and hung)

Think that's it for the Christmas one!

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

Our local school sells mulled wine and mulled cider at the Christmas fair! Goes down well.

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

Ooh that's dc school fucked then, they have a bottle tombola at every school fayre. And we're not talking bottles of pop. It's always the stall that runs out first. ...

Wine or water stall. Without fail it draws a crowd of adults and is sold out in ten minutes. I spent a tenner on it last year 🙈 ...and I was still chuffed with my £4.99 blossom hill 'win' 😂