London Party

 

 

 

The Theme

I thought I would start with my "Christmas in London" panels I made for the office party. There are eight major windows in the office lobby for which I design panels.  Each panel is 36" x 72" and fit together in pairs to make a scene.  The two below make up
London Bridge downtown.

 

                                 

 

 

 

These two panels show holiday shoppers, Big Ben, the ferris wheel, and a flavor of London houses.                               

                                                   

 

 

 

 

Here's a little taste of Covent Garden.

 

 

 

It wouldn't be complete without Buckingham Palace.

 

 

This is our pretend host's, Sir Robert Morenton's, downtown house.

He is VERY wealthy and has an attached menagerie to his grounds which

house exotic animals.

 

Why did I invent him?

 

Because. . . I had a LOT of oversized stuffed animals I used as props for the Office's fall Margarita Party's Safari theme.  I wanted to use them again and then raffle them off as prizes for the games.  TA DA!

 

 

The Games

 

So, now that I've set the theme, let's see some photos.

 

        I had eight carnival style games.  Each game had a circus wagon backboard with an animal in the cage.  See the frame on the left with six windows.  I ordered it on Etsy.   It had screen on it and hung on a ceiling for a tent wedding chandelier.  I removed the screen and added a backboard.  My hubby drilled round holes for each opening.  The contestants used an air nerfball shooter that shot multiple balls rapid fire. Each opening had a different point value. 
     The middle game used a wooden backboard I've used before.  I  bought it on Etsy also a few years back.  It was worth every penny.  I put dinosaur banks at different positions in it, front to back.  I made cardboard signs that stuck into the bank slots.  Each one had
a simple target with a number value on it.  I reused my spud guns and real potatoes.  They are toy guns into which you stick the barrel to make a spud.  The contestants shot the spuds at the targets.








    The blue backboard was also from Etsy.  But it had nine slots.  It was designed as a
bean bag tic-tac-toe.  I decided to stand it up and Velcro buzzers I bought on Amazon to each slot.  Each buzzer makes a different sound.  I had three large stuffed frogs, that I did emergency surgery on the morning of the party.  They weren't heavy enough to ring the buzzers.  So I opened them up and added quite a bit of small rocks to each one to make them heavier.  It worked like a charm.
     The last game was just a wooden box turned on it's side.  Contestants had whiffle balls
to knock over the cans.  I placed everything in a large tray to contain balls going everywhere.  It seems simple, but it WASN'T.  Ha ha.

 

I put painters tape on the floor for throwing lines.  It's is a large party, so our office
kitchen was the perfect place.  Normally, I spread the games out along the hallways, but we had a scooter race going out there.

 

 

 On the right in the back you can see the tip the bottle up game (found on Etsy).

 

Our last game in the kitchen was using my snowball shooters, ito which we put small bean bag birds.  We launched them into a series of nests (left over from Easter place settings).

Here is Sir Robert Moreton's house and his Christmas Menagerie. He is standing in front of it to greet visitors.  In the front of the photo is one of the two oversized giraffes we used as markers for the right side of the kitchen.  The scooter contestants turned around them to ride back up to the front of the office.



 

The final game was in the building's lobby, outside Architecture Inc.'s front door.

These are Santa's (or Father Christmas's) dogs.  He wants to take them down the Thames River with him.  Contestants stood across the lobby with tennis ball throwers and tried to get three balls in the boats.  This is the dogs second party appearance.  Last year we tossed bones into their dog bowls in front of Santa's camper.

 

 

The Set-up

 

Meanwhile upfront. . .  here is a peek at panels on the window, the tree, the couch seating area, and a display of prizes.  The live band is back near the tree.

 

 

 

Above are some of the cardboard house centerpieces.  Each had a few houses, a London street sign, and an elf in a car.

 

I made another evergreen tree in my floral design class this year.  It made a nice

centerpiece, along with one of the elves in cars on the coffee table in the lobby.

 

I am NOT going to pass up holding a baby if I get the chance.

 

 

 

The Raffle

 

The final photo is the chart in main hall.  Here are some of the teen boys from staff families.  The score chart is in the background.  Races were run during the week.  I bought three different types of exercise scooters, to give contestants choices.  Only the teens could successfully ride all three.  For the RAFFLE, we tape up tons of envelopes on the wall of the conference room.  Some said "stuffed animal" inside.  Some said "prize" inside.  Others had cash with $25 to $200 in them.  At first, we drew names from each of the eight game boxes, where winners had placed their tickets.  Then we drew names from the raffle box with names from everyone who came to the party.  The party-goers love this part of the evening.  In case you are worrying that we didn't feed anyone, there was a Christmas turkey dinner  buffet with all the fixings in the conference room. 

 

What's Next? 

 

Another year.  More targets.  More group contests.  What does 2017 bring?  Of course I already have a theme and have started on the panels, but first the Lumberjack Chili Contest is March 16, so I've been preparing for that.