February 7, 2011: Church Valentine’s Day Party Decorations and Games

As church secretary, I’ve been appointed the person in charge of this year’s Valentine’s Day potluck celebration at New Hope Christian Fellowship, along with my dear friend, Kathy. Yes, this is a usual and ordinary part of my job but I didn’t do it in 2010 (during my first year as secretary) since my daughter-in-law planned her baby shower for that weekend. I couldn’t miss the baby shower for my very first grandchild! So this is my first Valentine’s Day celebration where I’m in charge.

My pastor’s wife, Margaret, has some old games on pages we’ve copied over and over again through the years. She used to be an elementary school teacher and these are some of the games her kids would play for Valentine’s Day. The funny thing is that I looked online for suggestions, Googling “Valentine’s Day church games” and much of what I found was dual purpose: either for kids or Christians. Hmm… we may be church-goers, but we’re not children! So this year I’m opting for more adult-level games.

What have I got in store for our congregation? I’m in charge of games and this is what I’ve got so far:

• A glass jar decorated with hearts and filled with candy: challenge is to correctly guess how many pieces of candy are in it to win the jar with the candy.
• Valentine’s Day bingo: I found an online site (www.bingocardcreator.com) that allowed me to create and print 15 copies of a bingo card with such terms as “love”, “cupid”, etc. on the squares. I think I’ll need twice that amount of cards so I’ll make two copies of each and plan for two winners per round (that’s extra prizes we need to buy).
•  Valentine's Day crossword*
• Valentine’s Day word search*

• Valentine’s themed word ladder *
*These games can be found on http://holidays.kaboose.com/val-word.html - if you can get past the annoying auto-play video, there’s some good, albeit childish stuff here. Another one to try is http://puzzle-maker.com/.

We're on the hunt for tablecloths at thrift stores. To make things a bit more festive, we purchased some $1 packages of  large, cardstock Valentine’s confetti to sprinkle over the tables and a few packages of heart-decorated pencils.

This is a Valentine’s Day party recipe for decorating and fun on the cheap (since the church has a very small budget).