Every year, my college barkada (a.k.a., Azure Society) has an annual gathering for Christmas. It used to be an outreach program, followed by a Christmas Party – but for the past two years (and because we’re already doing our own outreach programs separately), we’ve tried to make our Christmas parties a bit more creative (and competitive).

Last year, we had a game of bowling, where the bottom 2 scorers will pay for dinner. This year, we hit the arcade to relive the old days when we’d hang out at Bibo (an arcade in SM).

Round 1 – Ticket hoarding

We split into two teams, bought a card each (with 250 pesos value) which will be used to spend on the games.

The first round is a test of luck – the team with the most tickets gathered after spending 250 pesos each wins. We managed to score over 400+ tickets, while the opposing team did not reach a hundred.

Round 2 – Basketball shooting

The second round is a (surprising) test of stamina and endurance. We had three rounds at basketball shooting/pop-a-shot and the team with the most number of points added up wins. It was touch as our arms started aching towards the last round. Our age caught up to us!

Because our team won both rounds, there was no more round 3! Free dinner secured!

Seafood Island Dinner

The basketball round got us all tired, sweaty and hungry! For dinner, we decided on Seafood Island and ordered a bunch of seafood (to our stomach’s content). Nothing beats free dinners!

While having dinner, we also drew the names for our exchange gifts.

Exchange Gifts

Our exchange gift mechanic is that we have 30-45 minutes to shop in the mall for a gift that is part of the wish list of the person we picked. There’s a kind of rush that you get when you buy the gifts right before you give it, and with the time limit – it becomes more pressured and challenging! Because of this exchange gift mechanic, we always have our Christmas parties inside a mall! After everyone has bought their gifts, we met up at a coffee shop to settle down and give our gifts to our “babies”.

After-party

We normally have an after party – usually a couple of hours at karaoke or drinks at a bar. But this year, since the “parents” of the group had to go home early, there were only four of us left, and karaoke wouldn’t be as fun. Also, there were no available rooms in the karaoke place that we went to – so we settled for a 90-minute massage instead! I guess you could say that it was the perfect ending to a great Christmas party event (our sore arms needed it, too!).

We’re already planning for next year’s activity! Christmas 2020 can’t come too soon!