CRAMming is a great way to make any celebration special!
C-R-A-M
C is for Conversational Questions / Journaling
One of our favorite ways to make time with our family and friends more meaningful has been to use questions. We started doing this about 20 years ago at our annual Christmas party when we exchanged grab bag gifts. Our questions have been a source of both fun and meaningful sharing and have helped us learn new things about even lifetime friends. We ask about past history and hopes for the future.
At birthdays, you could ask the same questions every year. Like…
What were the most significant events of the past year?
What is your hope for the coming year?
(& for the guests) What are your hopes for the birthday person?
You might like to create a journal to save the answers.
Graduations are a great time to ask about favorite school memories and future plans.
Wedding showers and Anniversaries are an opportunity to learn about the couple, as individuals and together, how they met, their favorite memories, what they were attracted to in each other, etc.
On Thanksgiving, the questions should relate to what guests are grateful for.
Easter questions might be about the Easter story, spring, and new life.
Valentine’s Day is a good time for asking what people love and appreciate about each other.
On New Year’s, the questions might be on thankfulness, reflections on the past year, or dreams for the future.
We recommend Chat Packs by Bret Nicholaus & Paul Lowrie and The Complete Book of Questions by Garry Poole as great sources of questions.
There also questions on
http://www.focusonthefamily.ca/parenting/mealtime-questions/mealtime-questions
http://www.everydayfamily.com/blog/20-dinner-table-conversation-starters/
http://thefamilydinnerproject.org/conversation-2/conversation-starters
http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/family/conversation-starters
(These are oriented toward dinner conversation, but they may be helpful in inspiring ideas.)
R is for Readings
Readings Suggestions include
Blessings
Prayers
Poems
Scriptures
Holiday stories
Humorous anecdotes
Wishes sent from people who could not attend the event
We always enjoy reading a Christmas story at our Christmas parties. We love well-written children’s books and try to project the illustrations on a wall. We also enjoy putting short readings into Easter eggs to be placed by plates at our Easter dinner.
A is for Adapted Activities
Adapt games and other activities to include content related to the celebration. Exchange the cards in games like Pictionary, Taboo, and Scattegories to include topics related to the holiday or honoree.
Other suggestions are:
Play Mad Libbs, but make up your own stories with blanks in the appropriate places.
Make up trivia questions about the honoree. For Jack’s birthdays, we often play, “You don’t know Jack!”
M is for Music
Create an MP3 playlist to use annually for each holiday~ Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Valentine’s Day, and Independence Day. We’ve had a special Christmas mix we’ve enjoyed for over thirty years! Listening to it brings back warm memories of Christmases past.
At a birthday party, play tunes from the era of the honoree’s birth date or the decades of his/her life.
On your anniversary, listen to the same romantic song or album every year.
Play lullabies at a baby shower and love songs at a wedding shower.
Play the school song at a graduation party.
Play hymns and praise songs at a baby dedication, christening, ordination celebration, and other spiritual milestones.
You can make an event very special by incorporating live music– it doesn’t have to be professional and expensive. Can you get a small group of talented teenagers to play chamber music? Or a few members of your church choir to serenade the honored guest? Recorded music can also be special. Listen to the same romantic album every year on your anniversary or play music from the era of a birthday person’s birth.