New Year's Eve Activities With a Youth Group
Welcoming the New Year with your youth group can be both fun and fulfilling. Reminisce about the past year with the people with whom you find comfort and support as you look forward to another year with them. Take this time to thank each other and promise more love and cheer for one another in the coming year. New Year's Eve celebrations need not be wild and crazy; togetherness is the only thing you need, and fun will follow. Does this Spark an idea?
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Reflect on the Year
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Reflecting on the year is a good way to bring together youth group members. Share stories of your life in the passing year. Talk about the significant, the good and even the bad moments that happened in the year coming to a close. A reflection night is best held outdoors, preferably with a bonfire and barbecued food. Form one big group encircling the bonfire and take turns sharing stories. If some youth group members aren't comfortable sharing with a big group, subdivide them into little groups for quieter discussions. Apart from openly talking about your experiences, you can also share and reflect through writing. Have your members write down their stories, fold them and put them in a container to mix with everyone else's. You can randomly pick one, read it aloud and have the group react. The writer of the story can choose to sign his name or remain anonymous. This works well for really shy people who otherwise wouldn't want to participate.
Culminate a Major Project
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If your youth group has been actively running a project---say, a food drive, book drive or bake sale---New Year's Eve is a perfect time to culminate it. Gather all participants at one huge party to evaluate how your project turned out. Surprise everyone and give an award or prize to the most active participant---someone who baked/sold the most cookies, collected the most books/canned goods, etc.---and give tokens to the rest of the participants. This will show great appreciation to everyone who joined and give the message that you value all efforts. Culminating a major project will encourage your youth group to hold more benefit-raising activities that will certainly be of help to the community. Also, a culmination night happening on New Year's Eve is an innovative way to close the year and welcome the coming 12 fruitful months.
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New Year's Eve Jump
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A New Year's Eve jump must take place outdoors, in a place with a swimming pool. Each member will jump to the pool, making a huge splash as she makes a New Year's resolution. Make the jump more exciting by shouting resolutions out loud and cheering each other on as you jump. After everyone is done jumping, carry on with a pool party to last until morning.
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References
- Photo Credit happy new year image by Bartlomiej Nowak from Fotolia.com
