Christmas break is just around the corner. But just like everything else this year, it will be a very different experience than usual. We asked several Hanze-students for their ideas on corona-proof Christmas holiday party ideas.
So what do Hanze-students come up with when you ask them for ideas to still enjoy the Christmas break? We send a small survey to fifteen students and asked if they had an online or offline corona-proof holiday party idea. They came up with some obvious ideas, but also some highly original ones.
Online options
What about an ‘online escape room with friends’, for instance? Check out this article for some great options. If you want to figure out who has which one of your friends is the smartest? Then this next one is for you. ‘A trivia night with friends, meet on Zoom or Skype and the game master can share their screen with the quiz.’ Check out Kahoot to create your own quizzes or choose from hundreds of pre-made ones.
Go to a parking lot with a bunch of cars. Park in a circle and just talk with some good music out of a speaker
Really looking for that Christmas spirit? Here is an online alternative: ‘Online Secret Santa! Draw lots online and then buy and sent the gifts online with a pre-decided budget.’ (Check out this website to draw lots automatically).
Offline options
But if all of these online options aren’t what you want, take a look at these offline options: ‘Just meet up with an allowed number of people and keep the restrictions in mind’. That’s quite general, isn’t it? This one is a bit more specific: ‘Go to a parking lot with a bunch of cars. Park in a circle and just talk with some good music out of a speaker.’
Some inspiration
Amelia Hennigan is a second year International Communication student at the Hanze UAS and she’s part of the board of the student organization KIC. They regularly organize events, also during corona. How do they do it? ‘Usually, the board organizes drinks for the students, but obviously, with corona, that wasn’t possible. So, we had to come up with a corona-proof alternative.’ And that they did. ‘We were very motivated to get people together physically as much as possible, within the restrictions, of course. We decided to organize a game night. Knowing that not everyone was in the country or comfortable with coming together, we also offered an online option.’
We were very motivated to get people together physically as much as possible, within the restrictions
So, what did they do exactly? ‘Basically, what we did was organize seven different games you could play with your phone. And if you were meeting physically you had card games you could play as well.’ Sounds like a great idea? Here are the online games they played:
- Evil apples: A game inspired by the well-known party game ‘Cards Against Humanity’. Download the app and you can start playing with your friends and family while keeping a safe distance.
- app: A video chat game where you can explore a 3D world with your friends.
- Online Uno: While social distancing you can still play Uno by downloading the app.
- Half a minute: Come together with friends and family and create teams. Each team describes 4, 5 or 6 words within half a minute. The team with the best strategy wins!
- Never have I ever: Look for fun lists of statements online with friends. Each time the statement is correct, you have to eat or drink something. That last part can be altered depending on the group you are playing with.
- Photo roulette: An app which picks random pictures (you can select) from you and your friends’ phones. The game is to guess whose photo is shown.
