Sponsored Santa Run
Hold a sponsored festive fun run in aid of the PTA. Ask children and parents to come in a Santa hat, elf hat, reindeer antlers or even full-blown Christmas fancy dress, and run around the local park, school field or playground. Be sure to round off the event with a well-earned mince pie and hot drink for all participants at the end of the course. Boost takings by getting a parent who’s a photographer to offer professional shots of the kids in their costumes, or even hold a fancy dress competition after the fun run.
Grotto or Grinch
For those who still believe, a visit to Father Christmas in his grotto is a time-honoured tradition that must, of course, be upheld. But what about the older kids who’ve already sussed out Santa and are too cool to care? For the non-believers, offer the option of a tête-à-tête with the Grinch in his cave instead. The famed icon of Christmas cynicism can offer up his gifts begrudgingly, while providing hilarious off-message chat.
Snowball fight
What child can resist the opportunity to make an unholy mess in the name of Christmas? Buy hundreds of cheap, fake snowballs or pompoms, place them in buckets around the school hall or canteen, and charge a small fee to let the kids chuck them at each other. Control the chaos with designated ten-minute slots for different year groups, and make sure that pupils tidy up after themselves in return for a candy cane at the end of each session.
Letters from Santa
Clever use of mail merge will fill your children’s hearts with wonder– and your PTA’s bank account with money. Create a template letter from the big guy (you can find examples online) and personalise info such as the child’s name, age and desired present. To save money on postage, ask parents to collect the letters from the school office, or send them home in pupils’ bookbags, cleverly hidden in a plain envelope addressed to their parents. Charge a small amount for each letter and make sure no child is excluded by asking those who can afford it to ‘pay it forward’.
Festive family bake-off
Ask families to don their oven mitts for a bit of competitive baking to get them into the Christmas spirit. Anything sweet and vaguely festive is permitted, from traditional Christmas cakes, yule logs, stollen and panettone, to gingerbread snowmen, Christmas tree cupcakes and reindeer brownies. Display the mall in the school hall, on a big table festooned with decorations, and ask a friendly local celeb (or, failing that, the school cook) to pick the star bakers. Then sell off everything at pick-up time with one almighty Christmas bake sale.
Festive photobooth
The selfie generation loves nothing more than striking a pose, so indulge them this Christmas with their own festive photobooth. No need to hire the real thing – just put up a suitable backdrop, provide lots of fun festive props and accessories, and get volunteers to hold up a homemade frame (or, to save on arm ache, ask a handy parent to knock together a frame on a stand). Get a volunteer to take the snaps using a school iPad, or ask participants to do it themselves using a selfie stick. Charge a small fee for participation or sell prints you’ve made on a colour inkjet printer.
Festive furoshiki
If you’re wilting at the thought of holding yet another wreath-making workshop, consider offering something a little different this year: a furoshiki fundraiser. The traditional Japanese cloths are a beautiful, environmentally friendly alternative to single-use wrapping paper. While they are hand-printing and learning to fold their very own gift-wrapping cloths, attendees can enjoy either a glass of sake or a festive tipple of their choice. (The parent who can still say ‘festive furoshiki’ by the end of the night is the winner.)
Hot-toddy hometimes
Help weary parents make it to the end of term with a pick-me-up on a Friday afternoon. With a temporary event notice (TEN) licence, obtained from your local authority for £21, you can sell alcoholic beverages such as hot toddies, mulled wine, eggnog, festive rum punch or Baileys hot chocolate to the grown-ups, while the young ones enjoy hot chocolate, mince pies and Christmas-themed biscuits. Without a licence, you can still offer non-alcoholic mulled wine, punch or hot chocolate with a twist – such as salted caramel, midnight mint, hazelnut cream or even chilli-spiked options.
Christmas keepsakes
Instead of the usual personalised cards and mugs, go for something a little more creative and make Christmas baubles featuring the children's smiling faces. Take a Santa hat or other piece of festive paraphernalia into school and snap a photo of each child wearing it. Print the pictures and hang them inside a clear plastic bauble, add some fake snow and tie a sparkly ribbon to the top. Take orders for the keepsakes on an app such as Classlist so that you can get parental permissions for the photos at the same time. Charge around £3 a pop, and you’ll soon be making both money and memories.
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