We actually did our first "Holidays around the world and in our community" last December. It was GREAT! We had 18 different stations that were set up and they were all linked to different customs and traditions including Boxer Day, St. Lucia Day, Christmas, Chinese New Year and so on.
The best part of the whole thing was that we got in touched with our local college who sends student teachers to our school, they wanted in on it and actually required the students to work on a station, they rearranged their schedule to be a part of it. It was a true team effort that we are doing again this year! There is alot of different sites you can look up, we also did alot of different food samples, which the adults liked but not the kids!

Our elementary school in the Boston area has learned that our beloved "Holiday Concert" will not take place this year due to budget cuts in our music department. This has been a time honored tradition where parents, grandparents, etc. enjoy seeing the students dress up and sing several holiday songs.

So, the PTO is hoping to "replace" this event in some way...our first choice is to bring in some show/performer/artist who has a holiday program to offer...any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

hartlandheidi,

I like this idea. I believe that if I was to try to do something like this I would possibly make it a family evening, similar to an Open House (if possible) and see if I could get the staff on board. Maybe each classroom could take on a different country or area or the world (or seasonal holiday as JHB recommended) and focus on that. There could be "treats" from that area, setups, such as a small christmas tree or flags, figures, pictures, videos, whatever. The parents and families could walk from class to class and listen in to discussions from the kids/parents or teachers, as well as look at the different displays.

If it wouldn't work out to have the teachers involved (which is tough sometimes as they can't be forced to do this kind of stuff) then maybe have parent volunteers from the classes take any of the kids who would want to take part in this and do the research, reach out to other parents to do some baking, setup the displays and hold it within the auditorium,or somewhere similar. Another option, which is similar to a different idea that I came up with last year, is to hold the event outside on a weekend evening and have hot cider, hot cholcolate, etc. Could even reach out to the high school choir or a local church choir to see if they would be willing to carol. Maybe even get the dads involved to dress up like the seasonal figure from the corresponding areas of the world. you know, papa noel for Brazil, julenissen for Norway, Christkindl in germany, etc.

If this is a public school the idea may not fly, but maybe there would still be a way to do it.

Good luck,
PresidentJim

You may want to consider broadening your theme to "Holidays Around the World". Then "Christmas" can be a component but you can embrace other areas such as Hanukkah, Kwanza , Chinese New Year, Boxing Day. Ours was Breakfast with Santa for years but evolved to Holidays Around the World - still having Santa as an important feature.

It was a series of craft and activity tables, refreshments, pictures with Santa, (Christmas) karoke continuously on the cafeteria stage, and sometimes a service project like a canned food drive or creating festive decorated boxes (Boxing Day) to use as containers to hold gifts for an annual nursing home trip by some of students.

You might also want to search some of the old postings as I recall some good discussions on this in the past. Here's a link to one post from when I was involved.

For us it was a Saturday morning event in early December and a real favorite with the families. One "problem" we had each year was that we always had too many volunteers. Not wanting to turn anyone away - ever - sometimes it required creativity on the part of the chair to actually find things for everyone to do. (This was the only event for which that was a problem!)

Hello everyone! I'm looking for ideas for christmas around the World? How can we get the whole school involved and make it fun for everyone? K-5. This will be a new program this year, which is replacing the "Santa store' which they all love so much... Thanks for any ideas!